Alex Ovechkin: Why Bruce Boudreau Will Be the One To Lose This Fight

Ask people what they think of when they hear the name Alexander Ovechkin, and you'll get responses along the lines of: superstar, amazing, talented, explosive, powerful. Homages to Ovechkin's athletic prowess and relentless competitive nature.

Something you might not expect to hear about Ovechkin is "Juice Boy."

That was one of the newer terms added to Ovechkin's adjective list, not terribly long ago.

Fast forward to this past Wednesday and you can add "scapegoat" to his list of words.

Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau called out Ovechkin after the superstar forward has only managed to tally one point in the first two games of the 2011-12 season, slinking to a -2 on the stat sheet.

This assessment elicited a rather cold reception from Ovechkin in the locker room later that night when speaking with Capitals Insider Chuck Gormley of CSNWashington.com.

“I think everybody can be better,” Ovechkin said after Thursday’s practice, where he was matched with center Nicklas Backstrom and new right wing Troy Brouwer. “I think that has to be between me and him and I don’t want to comment on it.”

The official comment is that there is no comment, but this is littered with subtext.

If you ask me, Boudreau needs to tread very carefully over the coming weeks because the absolute last thing that he wants to have happen is to let things deteriorate into a full out battle with Alex Ovechkin so early into the season.

Why? The answer is incredibly simple. Despite what anybody may think about it, the cold hard reality of this situation is that the Washington Capitals' are Alex Ovechkin's team.

He is the face of the franchise. The Capitals organization has invested the most money in him and that is still what it all comes down to: money.

We've seen this story line played out on several football teams and in a ton of movies where the coach is sent packing before the hot-shot player because the owners are far more interested in their profit margin than whether or not the coach is actually in the right.

In this case, Alex Ovechkin definitely has that leverage. He is considered by many to be the best player in the NHL, he is the most popular player on his team, and has a long term contract that shows the team is invested in his success just as much as they are invested in the overall success of the team.

Boudreau may have had a great deal of success as a head coach, and that hasn't been any different since he has taken the helm in Washington, but the fact remains that he has failed to lead the Capitals to a Stanley Cup title in spite of the unbelievable talent at his disposal.

The last thing Boudreau should be doing is picking a fight with the biggest star on the team—especially when the team has given up eight goals in two games and has managed to win both of them. He's on the hot seat, and this latest bout has only ratcheted up the heat.

Clearly the thing to worry about has much less to do with scoring and much more to do with the defense and goalies slipping about like pieces of swiss cheese on the ice.

Plus, Boudreau said it himself in the same article listed above, "If this was Game 38 and he had one point in a two-game stretch I don’t think people would be overwhelmed. I just didn’t think he had the best game he ever played." 

One point in two games at really any point of the season isn't something to really be concerned about.

Obviously you want your best players to be at their optimal performance night in and night out, but to single out your team's superstar two games into the season the way that Boudreau did, especially after games that they won, just doesn't seem all that smart.

The Capitals will renew one of the more heated rivalries running in the NHL Thursday when they meet the Penguins in Pittsburgh. It will be interesting to see how things play out.

If Ovechkin responds and scores a bunch of points, then Boudreau will look like a genius of a coach who knows how to light a fire underneath the pants of his star player.

f not, then maybe people start to question how much this team believes in Boudreau as a coach. We all know what happens when questions like that come along.

Boudreau needs to take a step back and remember one simple fact about life as a professional coach in almost any sport. The coach is always the first person to go, whether it's fair or not. Only after a few coaches have tried and failed with the same group of people with the organization finally move down to the players.

It's just a truth of professional sports as we know it.