Alex Ovechkin took up an unfamiliar position at Washington Capitals practice on Monday. The Great Eight, one of the NHL’s premier left wings, lined up on the right side of the team’s top line.
In Ovechkin’s place on the left wing was Aliaksei Protas, and Dylan Strome remained down the middle between the two. The new look line, hinted at as a possibility by head coach Spencer Carbery during Training Camp, comes after Ovechkin was unable to fire a shot on goal in a season-opening game for the first time in his 20-year career against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night.
“We just made an adjustment with the line just putting Protas there, lefty, trying to keep him on his strong side,” Carbery said post-skate. “We’ve got an influx of left-shot wingers, so we’re trying to tinker around with preventing one of those guys from having to play their off-side.”
Neither Carbery nor Ovechkin thought the change was that big of a deal. Ovechkin has played on the right before during his career, primarily when Adam Oates was the club’s head coach from 2012-2014.
“I don’t know,” Carbery said. “I think it’s a small change. I find him on both sides of the ice a lot, and so left or right, it’s not a huge deal to me.”
“We just mix it up,” Ovechkin added. “I have experience to play there, but it was a long time [ago]. But, again, [if] you start on the left or right, it doesn’t matter because in the game you’re coming from offensive zone to D zone and you stay on the right side. So, play basically most of the time there – left or right.”
Carbery’s lines at Monday’s practice seem to be what he’ll deploy against the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night. However, Ovechkin would not confirm if the right-wing experiment was just for practice or if he’d actually line up there in the team’s next game.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know if I’m going to play right or left or center,” Ovechkin said. “Maybe I’m going to play goalie tomorrow. We never know. But I think we still have options to find out combinations. It’s the beginning of the year, new faces on the team, so we have to find the right combinations, right chemistry, so that’s what we’re trying to do right now.”
The last time that Ovechkin consistently lined up on the right, the big Russian won the Rocket Richard Trophy in consecutive seasons and the Hart Trophy as league MVP in 2013. He even made the 2013 postseason NHL All-Star teams as both a left wing and a right wing due to some voters’ confusion about his actual position.
Despite the individual success, Washington did not excel as a team under Oates, and Ovechkin did not ever look comfortable on the right side. Instead, he did a lot of damage on the power play from his office on the left side of the ice, scoring 40 of his 83 goals across those two seasons with Washington on their man advantage.
Ovechkin was moved back to the left wing once Oates was fired and replaced with Barry Trotz ahead of the 2014-15 campaign.
