The truth is, only one person is emotionally missing from the Capitals’ locker room, and everyone inside that cocoon knows who it is. It’s the guy who looks like a shell of his former self, who before getting an assist Monday hadn’t score in four games and often doesn’t even look interested in playing hockey. Until Alex Ovechkin finds himself, finds the electrifying player he once was and backpacks this team to the Stanley Cup finals, everyone’s employment with the organization is in jeopardy.
Boudreau might go first. If not, then they jettison Alexander Semin, Ovechkin’s friend and Russian countryman whose mercurial ways seem to be rubbing off on Ovi more than his adrenaline and fire have ever influenced Semin. Sasha was a fourth-liner the other day at practice, was scratched Monday night and could be on his way out of town after that.
If the Caps can’t win it in two years’ time, more players will either be cut or shipped out, until George McPhee, Ted Leonsis’s general manager for life, finally walks the plank.
If that were to unfortunately happen, McPhee would rightly be mad as hell he could never get the right coach or right mix of players to lift the grail with Ovechkin — face of the franchise, the $124 million man, the NHL’s most dynamic, eye-catching player since Wayne Gretzky.
Yes, No. 8, The Great Frustrate.
“When Alex was fighting with [Sidney] Crosby as the best player in the world, I thought Alex was one of the hardest-working players in the world,” said ESPN analyst Barry Melrose, when I spoke with him earlier this month. “I don’t know if Alex is one of the hardest-working players in the world right now.”
Adding that Ovechkin needs to alter his game, Melrose added: “I’m not slamming Alex; I love him. But when I talk about great players I always say, ‘To those who are given the most, the most is expected.’ When you are given as much as Alex, being average isn’t good enough, and right now Alex is average.”
When I told Ovi this on Sunday after practice, he dismissed it, saying he had not heard that and that he didn’t wish to comment.
He should listen to the criticism, internalize it and let it fuel him instead of being in denial about his lack of productivity lately. He is on pace for a career-low 31 goals, one less than a year ago, when he scored 18 fewer goals than the year before.
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