Capitals defenseman Karl Alzner didn’t mean it. Really. Yes, he made the classic “cry baby” gesture at Boston Bruins tough guy Milan Lucic. But he was just tweaking the NHL’s prototypical power forward. At 6-foot-3, 228 pounds, Lucic is not someone whose reputation for toughness is in question. Alzner, who has known his fellow Vancouver native since they were kids and even played on the same travel team with him when they were 12, knows that better than anyone. So he was more amused than anything when hearing that Lucic, asked for comment on the gesture after Monday’s Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, scoffed that Alzner has taken maybe two roughing penalties in his career.
“He uses that against me all the time. He’s exactly right,” Alzner said on Wednesday. “This is a good time to explain. My actions weren’t calling him a baby. We all know he’s one of the toughest guys in the league. It was more just a lot of guys complaining about calls out there, and there’s nothing we can do about the calls once they’re made. I think a lot of people took it the wrong way. Things happen in playoffs that sometimes you go a little too far. It’s just funny that it got caught on camera.”
Alzner laughed because it was just a few weeks ago he tweeted that if the two fought he’d obviously win. It was completely tongue-in-cheek and done for a laugh – though, shocker, some apparently took Alzner literally and let him hear about it via Twitter. We’ve seen Alzner step up in unexpected ways physically, including a fight Jan. 13 with former Tampa Bay Lighting pest Steve Downie when he was still causing trouble for the Caps. But Alzner is definitely not looking for a scrap with Lucic. That’s a different level and it appears both sides want to put some of the shenanigans from Monday aside. Leave that for the Penguins and Flyers.
“Well, if you look at the other series, ours has been pretty light compared to all the other ones and what’s been going on,” Lucic said. “So again, it is what it is. And our focus isn’t on that right now so we’re looking forward to the challenge of whatever the next game is going to bring.”
Alzner’s point is a good one. There’s been a little too much whining on both sides during this series – something that doesn’t figure to improve in the coming days. They also have to deal with a fired up Lucic, so quiet in the first two games and a raging ball of muscle in the third. He had three shots on goal and eight hits Monday. He also earned four separate minor penalties, three of them for roughing, and knows he would have been the goat had teammate Zdeno Chara not score a late 4-on-4 goal – just moments before the Caps would have gone to a power play with Lucic in the penalty box.
“What we try to do is take away [Lucic’s] time and space. You give anybody time and space, they’re going to score,” Alzner said. “You look at a lot of his goals and they come from him out-battling guys in front or him being in the slot and making a nice finish. It’s either trying to out-battle him, big guy, but you try and get position or you make sure he doesn’t get the puck. That’s all we’ve been trying to do – try and get him off his game as much as possible. It sometimes works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
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