Adam Vingan of the blog Kings of Leonsis tipped off the good folks at Japers’ Rink that Capitals coach Dale Hunter hasn’t always been so chummy with his assistants – Dean Evason and Jim Johnson. The original video of Evason talking about that experience – his first NHL fight – was put together by WashCaps.com senior writer Mike Vogel and former web producer Brett Leonhardt two years ago. Can’t recommend it enough.
The story goes, on New Year’s Eve, 1985 at the Colisee de Quebec, Hunter and Evason fought three times in the same period during a Hartford Whalers’ game against the Nordiques – a nasty Adam Division rivalry back in the day. The first fight sent both men to the penalty box for major penalties. Hunter asked Evason to go during a faceoff 24 seconds after they got out. Later, Hartford coach Jack ‘Tex’ Evans asked Evason’s line – including teammates Paul Lawless and Stewart Gavin – to go back out and check Hunter, Michel Goulet and Peter Stastny. They didn’t even need to exchange words that time. By the end, officials kicked both men out of the game.
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“[Hunter] and I, we talked about it years ago in an adult establishment with some beers and discussed it,” Evason said. “We competed. We both competed and it just came to that. Like I said, that’s how he played and that’s how I played. When we talked about it [this week] he said ‘The boys were already bugging’ us, talking about it and stuff. He says we were trying to make a living. And that’s how it was.”
The idea here is that the current Capitals will take on Hunter’s persona. But the NHL is a different league than it was 12 years ago when Hunter retired. And it’s a different planet than the one he inhabited in his prime in the 1980s with Quebec and Washington. Hunter and Evason’s three-bout night now would probably cause sites like Twitter to implode. So is it in this current group to add some of Hunter’s fire? They could probably use some.
“I sure hope so. I sure hope that our group has the same mentality as [Hunter] does,” Evason said. “He worked and works now extremely hard, still competes in trying to beat the other team in strategy. So I would put his competitiveness up against anybody. So yeah, we really hope that our entire group takes on his personality.”
That includes Alex Ovechkin, obviously, who has eight goals and 10 assists in 23 games this season. Hunter has been asked about how he’ll handle Ovechkin probably a dozen times already. He’s offered no special insight into his plans. But Evason has a pretty good idea.
“[Ovechkin will] see how [Hunter] coaches and what he’s going to demand out of him,” Evason said. “We’re going to see I believe Alex play as hard as he ever has. We’ve already seen glimpses of it, obviously, in the first game. We’ve seen it in practice. I think that’ll be the biggest thing. Alex is still a great player, obviously. He’s a great player. He’s just got to get back to working the way that he always has to allow him to be successful and score goals.”
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