This is, by all reasonable measures, a high-water mark for an evolving Washington Capitals team that is not even a fifth of the way through its season. The Caps just shut out the reigning Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights. They are on a 7-1-1 heater. They sit in second place in the Metropolitan Division. They aren’t at full strength, and their power play is a mess. Yet they’re banking points under a first-year coach.
All this, without their identity. Nicklas Backstrom’s gloves and shin pads rest above his locker at the Caps’ Arlington training facility. His hockey pants hang on a hook where he once sat. His teammates bustle in and out because there is practice to be put in and games to be won. But a Capitals constant is now a casualty. It may never be the same as it ever was.
“It’s weird, you know?” forward Tom Wilson said. “The ins and outs of every game, every practice, every day without him. … As a player, he carried the team for 15 years.”
Whatever happens for the Capitals the rest of this season, however long it takes Alex Ovechkin to surpass Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record for goals (assuming he has 69 more in his 38-year-old body), their collective and individual success will almost certainly come without the player who set the standard for both virtually since he walked in the door as a Swedish teenager.
It has been two weeks since Backstrom announced through the team that he was taking time away from hockey, a self-aware acknowledgment of what had become apparent to Caps watchers over the past year and more: His surgically resurfaced hip wasn’t allowing him to be the player he once was, and not close.
But as Ovechkin’s Batman pushes toward Gretzky’s 894 without his Robin, it’s the person whose absence is felt, not the player.
“He’s like my brother,” Ovechkin said after the Capitals’ practice Wednesday. “We grew up together, as persons and as players. You learn about how he develops as himself over those years. He became a real leader on the ice, off the ice. Always, if I ask him something, he helps. And all of a sudden, he’s not here all the time.”
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**Perspective by Barry Svrluga:**
This is, by all reasonable measures, a high-water mark for an evolving Washington Capitals team that is not even a fifth of the way through its season. The Caps just shut out the reigning Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights. They are on a 7-1-1 heater. They sit in second place in the Metropolitan Division. They aren’t at full strength, and their power play is a mess. Yet they’re banking points under a first-year coach.
All this, without their identity. Nicklas Backstrom’s gloves and shin pads rest above his locker at the Caps’ Arlington training facility. His hockey pants hang on a hook where he once sat. His teammates bustle in and out because there is practice to be put in and games to be won. But a Capitals constant is now a casualty. It may never be the same as it ever was.
“It’s weird, you know?” forward Tom Wilson said. “The ins and outs of every game, every practice, every day without him. … As a player, he carried the team for 15 years.”
Whatever happens for the Capitals the rest of this season, however long it takes Alex Ovechkin to surpass Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record for goals (assuming he has 69 more in his 38-year-old body), their collective and individual success will almost certainly come without the player who set the standard for both virtually since he walked in the door as a Swedish teenager.
It has been two weeks since Backstrom announced through the team that he was taking time away from hockey, a self-aware acknowledgment of what had become apparent to Caps watchers over the past year and more: His surgically resurfaced hip wasn’t allowing him to be the player he once was, and not close.
But as Ovechkin’s Batman pushes toward Gretzky’s 894 without his Robin, it’s the person whose absence is felt, not the player.
“He’s like my brother,” Ovechkin said after the Capitals’ practice Wednesday. “We grew up together, as persons and as players. You learn about how he develops as himself over those years. He became a real leader on the ice, off the ice. Always, if I ask him something, he helps. And all of a sudden, he’s not here all the time.”
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