or the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night, the third line was the charm. With the Caps down 3-0 midway through the second period against the Anaheim Ducks, right wing Joel Ward netted a wrister that was set up by his linemates Brooks Laich and Jason Chimera to cut the Ducks’ lead to 3-1. Three minutes later, Laich and Ward were credited with assists on a slap shot goal by defenseman Dennis Wideman. On the other end of the ice, Washington coach Bruce Boudreau took every opportunity to match up his third threesome against Anaheim’s top line of Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and Bobby Ryan, and it worked: The Ducks’ stars were held to just one power play goal by Perry halfway through the third.
And it was the grinding third line that helped set up Nicklas Backstrom’s game-tying goal, with Chimera and Laich earning assists on Backstrom’s wrist shot with 42 seconds to play. The Swede would score his second in overtime to give Washington the stirring 5-4 comeback win.
Still, for all the third line’s contributions, the Capitals’ biggest headlines were made by their first line winger’s play — or, as it were, his lack thereof. With just over a minute remaining in regulation and the Caps down 4-3, Washington head coach Bruce Boudreau called a timeout to diagram what to do. He pulled goalie Tomas Vokoun and sent six Washington skaters out onto the ice — none of whom were named Alex Ovechkin.1 Replays later showed an incredulous Ovi glaring at Boudreau, plunking himself down on the bench, and muttering in disgust what a legion of lip-readers determined were the words “fat fuck.” He was sent back out on the ice in overtime, and played a strong shift that resulted in the primary assist on Backstrom’s game-winning goal.
“I thought the other guys were better than him and I thought there was just a chance that other guys might score the goal,” Boudreau said after the game when asked about Ovi’s absence on the game-tying play. “I’ve got to put out the guys that I think are going to score the goal and 99 percent of the time Alex is the guy I think is going to score the goal. I just didn’t think Alex was going to score the goal at that time tonight. You go with your gut feeling, thinking that line is going pretty good, and I got lucky.”
In the same way a basketball player or coach can be vilified for a last-second shot that rims out but praised as a clutch player or genius if the ball bounces in, Boudreau risked widespread wrath had his decision not yielded a goal. It was a bold coaching move that spoke volumes about the kind of team he and the Capitals are trying to become this season: one whose role players don’t just stand aside and watch Ovi take over. One with a locker room that is not lackadaisical and a coaching staff that is not blinded by stars. One where grinders like Joel Ward, who was acquired this offseason specifically to enhance the team’s checking line, and Brooks Laich, who was re-signed this summer for the same reason, are considered as integral to the team as someone like Ovechkin. Because when it comes to the all-important postseason, they almost certainly will be.
Boudreau, long questioned for a permissive attitude toward his team’s better players that, many complained, resulted in too much coasting and too many costs, has wielded his power more heavily throughout this young season. He’s done so with some measure of success. In the very first game of the year he sat Vokoun in favor of goaltender Michal Neuvirth, saying simply that Neuvirth had “earned it” with strong preseason play. Whether that particular move was the reason or not, Vokoun has been one of the league’s finest goalies since then. Boudreau scratched Marcus Johansson on opening night, and in the next game the young center responded with a goal and an assist. (He has recorded four more goals since, three of them game-winners.)2
Last night Boudreau effectively sent two important messages to the Capitals: that he’s willing to bench even the team’s biggest player, and, perhaps more importantly, that he’s got faith in everyone else when he does.
To his credit, Ovi handled it all as well as he could have — he got (rightly) furious, he got back on the ice, he got an assist, and, in a development that ought to soothe worried Caps fans, he seems to have gotten “it,” telling reporters on Wednesday that he understood what had happened. “Of course,” he said. “[The third line] play[ed] unbelievable last night, they shut down Getzlaf line and score goals. No doubt about it.”3
Lighting the Lamp: The Week’s Sickest Snipes
Poor Nicklas Backstrom. The dude tied AND won the game, and still the very first question VERSUS’s Keith Jones asked him afterwards was about Boudreau keeping Ovechkin on the bench. In Backstrom’s honor, here’s his game-tying goal.
At the same time the Caps-Ducks game was finishing up, another contest was following a similar pattern: a team coming from behind to tie it up late and then finishing it off in OT. And again one player was largely responsible for both goals.
First Minnesota’s Mikko Koivu deflected the puck into the back of the net with a minute remaining in the Wild’s game against the Detroit Red Wings to tie it up at 1-1. Then in overtime he was an absolute force. He took a shot, charged into the corner for the rebound, absolutely Kronwalled Detroit’s newly re-signed defenseman Niklas Kronwall — maybe illegally, to be fair, although Kronwall considered it legit — regained control of the puck, carried it across the slot, and fed it low to a waiting Devin Setoguchi, whose OT game winner was the first regular-season one of his career. (The loss was Detroit’s second straight to the Wild in back-to-back games and its fifth in a row4 after a 5-0 start.)
