When people wonder “Where’s the old Alex Ovechkin?,” many are just asking where his scoring touch went. That being said, there’s also been the sense that the all-world winger hasn’t quite been there in spirit, either. He hasn’t been the video game hockey player turned human - the guy just as likely to clobber someone with a check as he would be to embarrass a goalie with a highlight reel goal.
Ovi has a long way to go until he totally rebounds to that form, but there have been enough glimpses of that freight train style to start getting excited.
In other words, opponents better keep their heads up, as hard-hitting and receiving* forward Tuomo Ruutu realized today.
Here are highlights from the full game between Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals and Ruutu’s Carolina Hurricanes, which the Caps won 2-1.
* - Seriously, I feel like Ruutu is an inordinate amount of destructive collisions, with nearly equal quantities of “good” or “bad” ones.