Took the 3 a.m. train back from Penn Station after a night in Newark, where the Caps were pummeled by the Devils, 5-0. Again, check out both our game story and post-game recap here.
By now I assume you’ve read the article by CSN’s Corey Masisak’s on the post-game fraternization between Washington forwards Alex Ovechkin and Alex Semin and New Jersey forward Ilya Kovalchuk. The three Russians – all good friends – were conversing a few feet from where Caps coach Bruce Boudreau was conducting his post-game press conference in a Prudential Center hallway.
Some laughter from the group caught Boudreau’s attention and he faltered in the middle of an answer about the team’s goaltending. Right away you could tell he wasn’t happy. Corey finished the presser with a question about the conversation to our left and Boudreau calmly declined comment.
“I’ll reserve my thoughts on that, if you don’t mind,” he said. But a “no-comment” is pretty meaningless when you have steam coming out of your ears. Everyone in that post-game scrum noticed it.
Is this a common occurrence in the NHL? Absolutely. We all saw Tomas Fleischmann talking with fellow Czech Republic native Patrik Elias, too. I’d say every other Caps home game I come out of the home locker room, turn the corner towards the visitor’s locker room and run into Ovechkin – or one of his teammates – coming back from a chat with one of his friends on the other team. It happens all the time and I’m sure it’s happened after a tough regular-season loss, too.
Some will say it was not appropriate behavior for a team captain – especially one who was dropped to the third line for part of Monday’s loss. It was late so we couldn’t get any follow-up reaction from teammates as they bolted for the team bus. I’m sure that’s coming today after practice in Raleigh. Whatever your take on it, though, being a captain is about perception as much as anything. To an extent, Ovechkin could care less what fans or media say about him. But if his own head coach and teammates are unhappy then it becomes an issue. If they don’t see it as a big deal – I’m guessing most don’t – then it isn’t one at all.
Want a better idea? Don’t lose games 5-0 twice in four days to inferior teams. Then no one cares about any of this stuff.
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