Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Alex Ovechkin diplomatic about benching: “You have to suck it up”

ovigetty

If Alex Ovechkin is furious about his meager ice time, he’s at least keeping those views to himself. Once again the Washington Capitals captain is saying all the right things about Dale Hunter’s decision to glue him to the bench for most of Game 2, which he eventually decided with a 3-2 goal.

Katie Carrera collected Ovechkin’s thoughts on his 13:36 minutes of ice time.

“You have to suck it up and use what time Dale is giving to me,” Ovechkin said.

Yup, that more or less follows the pattern of Ovi’s diplomatic comments regarding his scant opportunities so far in the 2012 playoffs. For whatever it’s worth, Washington has five playoff wins so far after being swept from the second round in 2011.

Ovechkin seems to get Hunter’s message about what he needs to do to receive more ice time.

“Score goals and play safely,” Ovechkin said. “when you play safely the team and the coaches have trust in you.”

Fans who loved Ovechkin for the days when he was basically a human video game - hard hits, big goals and unfiltered exuberance - might be a little bummed about that, but it’s clearly what Hunter wants. The Capitals’ head coach provided some extra insight about Ovechkin’s ice time and attitude in these quotes from Stephen Whyno.

“Some nights, it’s one way – this night, one way and then the next night I double-shifted him a few games during the year. He played 25 minutes or something, and he’s fine with that, being extra tired at the end,” Hunter said. “He’s one of these guys that he’s a team guy and he wants to win very badly. He’s the biggest cheerleader there late in the game there when these guys are going down blocking shots.”

Who knows how long this fascinating Hunter-Ovechkin partnership will actually last, but Hunter probably makes the most prescient point: if they keep winning, they’ll keep the peace. Winning has a way of smoothing things over, after all - but the Capitals still have a long way to go before everyone starts looking like geniuses.