“What I would do, a lot — and I just thought I was getting old — I would get into my car and drive and miss all the turns I was supposed to make,” Boudreau recalled. “Or I would stop and think, ‘Did I just go through a red light? Or was it green?’
“I was just thinking. My mind was somewhere else.”
Though Capitals owner Ted Leonsis scoffs at the notion — “We weren’t close to pressing a panic button,” he said — scrutiny over Boudreau’s job security increased, among fans and the blogosphere.
Such speculation, and the losing that inspired it, seem distant memories for Boudreau and the Capitals, who open the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s top seed for the second straight season Wednesday night. But the transformation that has taken place over the months in between — perhaps Boudreau’s virtuoso performance — serves as testimony to how much Boudreau lives the game, and how much this Capitals team needs him.
“I know [Pittsburgh Penguins Coach Dan Bylsma] said he goes home and it’s all done,” said Boudreau’s wife, Crystal. “Hockey is our whole life. We all live and breathe for the Caps. If it’s bad at work, it’s bad at home.”
After a pause, she added: “This is something we do as a family. We know what business we’re in. We knew where it could go.”
‘Someone to talk to’
During the winless streak, which eventually reached eight games, the Boudreaus discussed each defeat on the ride home from Verizon Center. When the Capitals were on the road, the coach’s first phone call was to General Manager George McPhee. His second was to Crystal.
“You got to have someone to talk to,” Bruce Boudreau said. “She knows the game really well. And you want somebody when you’re really low, not to talk back, but to agree with everything you say.”
The previous December, holiday cheer filled the Boudreau home as the Capitals sprinted to first place overall in the NHL. This season, it was filled with HBO cameras filming scenes for “24/7”, which only fueled the anxiety.
“We went 0-6-2, and after what we had done, it seems ludicrous to think that that could happen,” he said about the possibility of getting fired. “But I’m also not dumb. I was in the minors for 30 years and you see this happens in our business all the time. People who say they don’t ever think about it are nuts or are not telling the truth.”
After games, Boudreau often sat on the couch in the family room, staring blankly at the television screen. The normally chatty coach kept his thoughts to himself, despite Crystal’s best efforts to get him to open up. The silence was occasionally broken by a ringing telephone.
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