Tarik El-Bashir of the Washington Post’s Capitals Insider spoke with Alex Ovechkin and Bruce Boudreau today in the wake of last night’s highly-publicized benching. In case you missed it (I have no idea how, considering we’ve written about it roughly 32 times), Ovi was benched late in regulation of Washington’s 5-4 comeback victory over Anaheim.
Here are some of the more choice quotes procured by El-Bashir (all come courtesy his Twitter account, @TarikElBashir)
Ovi on the benching: “I was pissed off. Of course I want to be in that situation on the ice.”
Ovi on what he said on the bench (allegedly cursing out Boudreau): “It doesn’t matter who I said it to, and what I said. It looked funny on TV.”
Ovi on his reaction: “It was just a little bit frustrating because I’m a leader in the team and I want that kind of responsibility.”
Boudreau on the number of TV cameras at practice: “Jeez, I only benched him one shift.” (Turns out they were there to film an NBC promo.)
Boudreau on if he pulled Ovi aside: “No. There’s nothing to talk about. We all understood it from Day One. It’s [part of] the whole theme for the whole year. We sat Marcus [Johansson]. And Jeff Halpern. Alex Semin has missed time at certain times.”
El-Bashir also reported Boudreau didn’t hear what Ovechkin muttered on the bench last night. Well, Boudreau said he didn’t hear what Oveckin muttered but according to our in-house lipreading team, it rhymes with “pat puck.” (Watch it here.)
So that’s the latest from Capitals practice. We’ll continue to provide up-to-the-minute coverage of this situation as it’s really boosting our page views.