Years before it turned out that Alex Ovechkin was about to break the NHL record in the history of the targets, he had an undisturbed five-time league leadership at Power-Play’s goals.
101 pucks, which he drew home with the advantage of man compared to this section, from 2012–13 to 2016–17, forced the opponent to significantly adjust how they appeared around him. And as the Washington Capitals superstar has changed back, it offers a pretty good window to now knock on the door of history.
“His game, in this period really changed, because the teams began to kill the punishment that cost him a guy,” says former coach of Todd Reirdn’s capital cities Athletic. “The instruction just said,” Okay, if we lose, we don’t lose with him. “”
Only on Ovechkin he did not stand idle and did not allow it to happen.
As Reirden remembers, Ovechkin noticed that the then assistant coach, who made his defender a drill where the timing pucks and asked about the connection. Soon they found themselves regularly to expand the area where Ovechkin could get his Lethal shot in the offensive zone as a way to fight human coverage.
“He was always on top of the circle in this area, where his office was for one timer,” says Reirden. “So he moved him higher and lower and expanded his cake a little, I thought that at the time we were there, he grew a lot. He adapted to one -off pucks and” pure “to release them cleanly) or catch them for 100 miles per hour, but with a unique trajectory.
What could be the most instructive on this anecdote is how the controlled Ovechkin was to find new ways of breaking and how perceptive to take proposals from a coach who did not have to play a biography closely close to his own. Before he stepped behind the bench, Reirden was a well-traveled defender who appeared in 183 NHL games and scored 11 goals-O 878 less than Ovechkin sits today.
“No one can shoot a puck like him or shoot the goals he has, but if you gave him a small snippet that can help him score another goal, then everything is,” says Reirden.
Alex Ovechkin and Todd Reirden in 2020 (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Barry Trotz was a former defender who did not proceed as a player as a player, but watched a similarly friendly tendency in Ovechkin after he was hired to train the capitals in 2014.
They sat down for the first time after dinner in Las Vegas. Trotz arrived with 40 ice questions that were designed to get to know his star player better. This started a four-year run, where Ovechkin added 185 goals to his career and culminated in an epic increase in the Stanley Cup in the T-Mobile Arena in June 2018-not far from where they first broke the bread.
Along the way of Trotz found that Ovechkin was a rare superstar that did not mind hearing criticism. He also observed a transformation where the captain took measurable steps in his preparation, focus and purchase, and felt an elevated Washington tribe trying to overcome the Hrb.
“There were times when we would go a little,” Trotz says. “But what I was impressed for, he always had passion and love. Not only for the game but for life.”
“Hard coaching could be taken, and this is very, very unique.
“You could challenge him and he went,” yeah, you’re right and I’ll do it. “
This attitude of Can-Do was obvious from his first days in the league. Ovechkin scored twice in his first NHL game in October 2005 and ran to 52-goal newcomer campaign-and the highest expectations reserved for selection No. 1.
“It’s really hard to paint a picture, but for whatever reason it wasn’t as if you were dealing with a junior hockey player,” said Glen Hanlon, his first coach of the capital, recently NHL.com. “There was something that was ready for a moment.”
Bruce Boudreau took over at the beginning of Ovechkin’s third NHL season and found that he was a “perfect superstar”. A player who seemingly ignored external criticisms or comments, and one who continued to show a taste for life, even though the reflector grew.
Before Trotz arrived at Washington-Points Dale Hunter and Adam Oates behind the bench-he showed the players well on the way to the searched milestone of 500 goals, but unlike ever he ever met.
“Dating from Russia, where every Russian was a bit quiet, and yet the guy wasn’t,” Trotz says. “He was loud and noisy and unique and your eyes were on him. Your eyes are always on him. He’s” it ” “That’s” it “is quite strange. ”
During the long area of time, there were many NHL players who used their size to dominate the game or their shot to deceive the goalkeeper. But Trotz does not think that sometimes there was one player who joined these attributes in a way that shechkin has.
When you connect it with the power of will that he rarely seen him with injuries-“He is a person who simply does not stop,” said former coach Peter Laviolette-and there is still no joy of being recorded, not only his own, not only his own that it was universal. The university was universal, as soon as it was universal on the authentic, that it was on verification, that it was, that I was universal at the university, that it was once universal, that it was universal, that it was universal, that it was at the university.
“It’s a great life lesson for anyone: If you like what you do, you’ll always be better in it,” says Reirden. “It wasn’t always perfect for him, and he had gone through the times when we had to work through the gap. During that six years, we did different things to go through (cooperate).”
“He is very, very coaching and wants to do anything to improve.”
A little saying that the goals of the Ovechkins most appreciate their coaches are those that will not eventually count on the overall setting of the record. Trotz remembers one who scored against Tampa Bay in the final of the Eastern Conference 2018. Reirden’s favorite goal is the “goal” of Ovechkin to become the first Russian captain to win the Stanley Cup before doing it.
Alex Ovechkin hand over Stanley Cup to Barry Trotz in 2018 (Isaac Brekken / Getty Images)
In retrospect, this championship could free him for a stormy run that has come since.
Trotz believes that the weight that he does not have a championship was a huge burden for Ovechk’s. Since he celebrated Stanley Cup in the DC fountain and threw candles on his 33 birthday cake, scored another 281 goals, and now sit six shy breaking Gretzky record.
“When I met him, he was frustrated that he had no cup, and I said,” You won’t define a cup. Think of all the children who wanted to be Alexander Ovechkin, all the people who pay for watching Alexandra Ovechkin, “says Trotz.” Because he’s different. You’ve never seen anything like that. “
“It’s around generational talent. You may not see more.”
(Illustrations: Demetrius Robinson / Athletic;; Photos: Geoff Burke / Imagn Images, John McCreary / NHL, Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
