With the Washington Capitals eliminated from the playoffs Alex Ovechkin isn’t jumping onto any other teams’ bandwagons. During media day, one of the reporters asked Ovechkin if he was hoping to see former head coach Barry Trotz find success this year.

“To be honest with you, I don’t care,” Ovechkin said. “Who wants it, has won. I wish him luck–I wish all the teams luck–but it suck we’re not there.”

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Hear from the Captain as he heads to the World Championship to play for Team Russia #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/st4aTm5bWA

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Trotz was welcomed warmly by his former team when they presented him with his Stanley Cup ring during their first game against the New York Islanders. Trotz’s focus now (unlike Ovechkin’s) is on the Islanders, but he still had a lot of love for his former team.

“There’s such a big investment to winning and you guys made the biggest investment, and it’s worth everything,” Trotz said. “I’ll die a happy man. It is going to be really hard to not like you guys, it really is, because you’re always family.”

During the Capitals’ run last year former Cap Karl Alzner was rooting for the team because they had “15 of my closest friends. I was happy for them,” he continued. “It was a roller coaster of emotions. But the way I saw it was when do you get a chance to see 15 of your closest friends realize their dream.”

Former Capital and captain of the second-round-bound Carolina Hurricanes was happy for their success in 2017-18 and jealous that he wasn’t there. “That team has just been so good for so long and to see them finally win…I never really openly rooted for another team as much as I did with them,” Williams said.

Ovechkin did say in his interview that the locker room over the last few years under Trotz and Todd Reirden “has been tremendous.” Given the warm welcome the team gave to Williams, Taylor Chorney, and Barry Trotz, the connection is there, even if the cheerleading isn’t.

Headline photo: Capitals