Alexander Ovechkin cares.
This is his 10th season in the National Hockey League. He is a three-time MVP, captain of the Washington Capitals since early 2010, and regularly defenestrates goalies with his one-timers from the face-off circle.
But finally, and indisputably, one can say: he cares.
For so long he turned it on and off, seemingly on a whim, driving fans mad. Yes, he could score, but at the other end of the ice he could show an appalling lack of commitment to defence. His plus/minus a year ago was minus-35, third-worst in the league. And he has never taken his team past the second round of the play-offs.
But in this year’s play-offs we are seeing a reborn Ovechkin.
Take Game 2 of the current second-round series against the New York Rangers. Final minute of the game, Caps trailing by a goal, net empty. A Washington defenceman starts out of his zone with the puck. In swoops Ovechkin, takes the puck, tries to skate through a swarm of Rangers and tie the game himself.
Rash? Perhaps. But it was Ovechkin who had brought Washington to within one goal earlier in the third when he bulled his way through two defenders and from his knees – his knees! – wired a shot past Henrik Lundqvist.
It might have been the goal of the play-offs.
He had shown he could use smarts as well as force in the pivotal moment of Game 1. Score tied 1-1, four seconds left in the third. The Rangers had the puck in their own corner. Nicklas Backstrom rushed in with a body-check. The puck came loose; Ovechkin corralled it. All eyes – goalie, defenders, fans - were on No 8. He headed behind the net, pursued by two Rangers, and at the last moment sidled a pass to Joel Ward all alone in the crease, who tucked home the winner with 1.3 seconds left.
Ovechkin is playing like a lion-hearted leader. But where did this come from?
One explanation is that he is responding to the Caps’ first-year coach, Barry Trotz. Maybe. But if Trotz is such a clever marshal of men, why had he won only two play-off series in his 15 seasons in charge of the Nashville Predators?
Trotz, though, is no fool, and heaps praise on his star for his renewed effort, saying after Game 1 that Ovechkin is “really similar” to the sport’s best captain of the past 40 years, Mark Messier.
Since 2006/07 the league each season has given the Mark Messier Leadership Award. Messier was fierce, as terrifying to any laggard on his own team as to any rivals on the other side of the ice. Ovechkin is not there yet, but the comparison is no longer risible.
And Trotz has, on occasion, applied the heat. After the Caps fell to 4-5-2 on November 2 with a home-ice loss to Arizona, a game in which Ovechkin took two penalties and whiffed clumsily on a pass in his own zone to enable a quick Coyotes score, Trotz ripped his team’s play: “That behaviour has to change or we have to change people. Plain and simple. To me it’s absolutely unacceptable.”
Note that the coach did not single out Ovechkin as a culprit, but kept it in a team context.
So, some credit to Trotz.
But here is another explanation: Ovechkin is not a young man anymore. He turns 30 in September. Already, he has grey in his hair. Time, which in his youth must have yawned endless in front of him, is closing in. He has only so many chances left; he is not profligate with them as once he was.
He has less time. And so now is his time.
rmckenzie@thenational.ae
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