Nic Dowd and the Washington Capitals are back on the ice Thursday night against Colorado, but they’ll be without Alex Ovechkin, who is week to week with a lower body injury suffered earlier this week.
“I think when we saw Ovi go down and he stayed down for as long as he did, and then he couldn't finish the game, I think we realized that it probably something pretty good that was,, bugging him,” Dowd tols the Junkies on Thursday. “He hasn't missed a lot of time in his career, which is pretty special. It's hard to do, especially the way that he plays the game, so that was tough to see. Hopefully, we'll be getting him back sooner than later.”
The week-to-week diagnosis isn’t great, but better than it could’ve been, at least.
“Not encouraged from the fact that he's injured by any means, but right when you get injured, your immediate thought is, how long is this gonna take,” Dowd said. “Obviously everyone is different, and injuries happen, but once it gets assessed, I think we're all upset and upset for O, who was on fire, but getting the diagnosis and then seeing how long it's gonna take, I think it was encouraging all in all for what happened.”
Dowd didn’t think the contact that caused the injury was intentional, even if Coach Spencer Carbery called it ‘reckless’ on Wednesday, but he was glad Jack McBain got a little retribution.
“I don't think it was intentional by any means, but there’s a pretty good code in hockey. Willie’s one of the best at it, and I think when your captain goes down, it probably has to be addressed, and I think we're all really fortunate that we have Willie on our team to take care of stuff like that,” Dowd said.
So how do the Caps try to replace him?
“It’s gonna be a group effort for sure. O was the hottest guy in the NHL coming in and leaving that game, so it's gonna be tough to replace three goals every game,” Dowd said. “We’re definitely gonna have to do it by committee, need everyone to step up, and then not having our captain in the locker room is obviously tough too. Not having him on the ice is going to have its challenges, but we’ve been there before; the group that’s been here has done with a ton of injuries, and so guys in our organization have had to fill roles that they weren't necessarily ready to fill, which I think coming into this year has been really beneficial. I think we're going to be in good shape, but we'll be happy to have him back for sure.”
But, as great as Ovechkin is and as huge a loss as he is for the Caps, it’s hard to say how the team will be different without him, because he was SUCH a presence that other teams also have to change their plans now that he’s out.
“Hard to say. O is a guy that regardless of the game plan against him, and regardless of everybody in the entire arena knowing what's gonna happen, he's still been able to score goals,” Dowd said. “Last year, he still finished with over 30 goals, which is really impressive, and I think what people forget to understand is that when we play teams, everybody's mind is on Ovi and how to prevent him from scoring. He’s been dealing with that his entire career, where he's still been putting up big numbers despite teams doing their best effort to control him not scoring. In my opinion, he’s the best goal scorer the game’s ever seen.”
Which led Dowd to a story of just how tough it is to play Ovi.
“Put it this way: if I score a goal in a game, I'm pretty happy about that, and if the rest of the game goes pretty well and you end up with one goal, everyone's happy,” Dowd said. “Ovi’s the guy where it's like he scores one, he wants four, and that's probably the difference. It's hard to stop a guy when he's that hungry.”
Take a listen to his entire call-in, as he discusses thoughts on prepping for Colorado, breaking his nose against Toronto ahead of a west coast trip to high altitude, and more!