During the one-day autopsy Thursday of the Washington Capitals’ embarrassing exit in a four-game sweep at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the star and captain of the team said he was hurt much of the season.
Then Alex Ovechkin left town to play for Russia in the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships.
Whatever pain he was in he left behind for Caps fans to live with for another year.
That’s what we are talking about — another full year.
The pain of last year’s version of the Caps’ embarrassing exit — the top seed was knocked out in the first round by the Montreal Canadiens — did not go away until Washington disposed of the New York Rangers in the first round of this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs.
The entire 2010-2011 season was merely to prepare a team that seemed dysfunctional for playoff hockey to function in that style of play this time around. All the work to change the play from a free-wheeling offensive unit to a more disciplined defensive team was geared to getting the Caps ready to play hockey in May — and June.
They’ll do it all over again next season.
I guess Ovechkin is already preparing for that by now playing for Russia. Or maybe he is playing because it appears it is really important to him to represent and win a world championship for his country.
Ovechkin has played for the Russian men’s team in the world championships since 2005. He led Russia to the gold medal in 2008, but it lost to the Czech Republic in the finals last year.
Ovechkin, whose mother won two Olympic gold medals while competing for the Soviet women’s basketball team in the 1976 and 1980 games, grew up in a place where winning the international world championship — a tournament that has existed for more than 100 years — for your country is important.
It is a century-old European tradition.
The Stanley Cup has been on the radar for eastern European players for only for a little more than 20 years. It is a North American tradition.
I’m sure winning a Stanley Cup is important to Ovechkin as well.
Caps owner Ted Leonsis, who signs those big checks, wrote on his blog following the sweep by the Lightning, “Their role players outplayed our role players. Their highest paid players outplayed our highest paid players. In fact, their role players outplayed our highest paid players.”
When you are the highest-paid player on your team, as Ovechkin is — he signed a 13-year, $124 million contract, the richest in NHL history, in 2008 — all questions, including ones about commitment, are on the table when your team fails so miserably in the only games that count on this continent — the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
