Alex Ovechkin has had eight different coaches as a member of the Washington Capitals, dating back to his first bench boss, Glen Hanlon, in 2005 and going all the way to today’s Spencer Carbery. One coach, former Capitals captain Dale Hunter, who led the Capitals for just part of the 2011-12 season after Bruce Boudreau was fired, appears to have been Ovi’s least favorite.
During an extensive interview with the Russian soccer-focused YouTube channel It’s Football, Bro!, Ovechkin explored how he would respond to being benched by a coach, bringing up Hunter as an example.
“There was a coach who (benched me),” Ovechkin said, as translated by Google Translate. “We were playing the first period, we were leading 1-0, I was sitting down. The score was 1-1, go play. It was Dale Hunter.
“It was 2012. We were playing in the playoffs, playing against the Rangers. Third period, power play, I scored a goal. Well, that’s it, I realized that I was going to sit now. I sat down. And so I sat like that for 20 minutes.”
The night in question was Game 2 of the Capitals’ second-round matchup with the New York Rangers during the 2012 playoffs. The Great Eight scored the game-winning goal with 7:27 left in the third period but only skated 13:36 in the 3-2 win.
Then-GM George McPhee brought in Hunter to try and even out a Capitals team that was previously deemed too offensive to win in the playoffs under Boudreau. Under Hunter, the Capitals eliminated the defending champion Boston Bruins in 2012’s first round but eventually fell in seven games to the Rangers.
Ovechkin later admitted he felt “trapped” when playing for Hunter. The longtime head coach of the OHL’s London Knights implemented a hardcore, dump-and-chase system, which he would have loved as a player but was unpopular with the Capitals’ stars.
“He is a coach purely for defensemen,” Ovechkin told It’s Football, Bro!. “And if, let’s say, we’re losing, he would put me, [Alexander Semin], [Nicklas] Backstrom on. We would all go out together, play, try to create something, score. But as soon as we were winning, Semin and I would sit on the bench, like this to each other, ‘Okay, let’s watch hockey.'”
The team’s previous high-paced, offensive style helped spark the “Rock the Red” era and was popular with the club’s fanbase. Ovechkin says Hunter ignored all of that.
“He didn’t care, you see, he was on his own wavelength,” Ovechkin said. “If everything was justified, I would understand, but we really had a good link there, me, Backstrom, and Semin, we tore it apart. Only when we are leading in the score, it doesn’t matter, first period, second, third, we immediately sat.”
The 2011-12 season saw Ovechkin skate under 20 minutes per game for the first time in his career. After Hunter chose not to return for another season, Ovechkin immediately returned to playing more than 20 minutes in each of the next four seasons.
Ovechkin has since referenced his time under Hunter to joke about how players could learn to play better defense. In 2019, he replied “Call Dale Hunter” when a Toronto Maple Leafs reporter asked him how Auston Matthews could become more of a two-way forward.
The Capitals are now led by Carbery, entering his second year behind an NHL bench. Ovechkin says Carbery’s communication style and relationship maintenance lend much better to tough conversations about needing to sit on the bench.
“After the game, I’ll talk to him, tell him, explain the reason to me,” Ovechkin said. “But if it’s clear that I’m not doing well, I’m not doing the forecheck, or something else. Of course, he’ll sit me down, and then explain it all to me.”
