The mid-to-late 2000s Capitals were a young team with a lot of upside coming out of a rebuild. In Bruce Boudreau’s first stint as an NHL head coach, he led the “Young Guns” — a group of budding stars in Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Mike Green, and Alex Semin — after being internally promoted by the organization from the AHL’s Hershey Bears midway through the 2007-08 season.
With their youth came many growing pains, which Boudreau experienced firsthand. One struggle, the players’ tendency to enjoy a night out on the town, became an issue Boudreau was tasked to solve by calling each player for curfew checks at night.
Boudreau recently described the sometimes awkward process in an interview on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast and focused in particular on a call with a young Alex Ovechkin.
“George McPhee knew our team partied a lot back in the day, the young guys,” Boudreau said. “We were young and everything else, so he said, ‘I want you to start calling curfews.’ I said, ‘George, it’s the NHL. I don’t want to call a curfew on these guys.’ And, he says, “Yeah, start calling curfews.’ So, I remember having to phone Mike Knuble, who’s 39, got four kids at home, and I ask him if he’s in, ‘I apologize, Mike, but I gotta call you.’ But, if you didn’t know, you couldn’t punish them.
“One night, I’m phoning, I’m trying to get Alex in. Now, if you guys know Alex, there was a lot of times he really didn’t adhere to curfews. Ovi, I’d sit there, and it’s five to 11, and I’m calling Ian (presumably a Capitals staff member), and I said, ‘Ian, we have to find Ovi because I have to report back to George who is in and who is not in.’ And he says, ‘Okay, I’ll try to find him.’ At two minutes to go, Ovi phones me. All you hear is the electric music, the Russian electric music in the background, it’s so loud, and I go, ‘Ovi, are you in?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, coach, I’m in,’ and I said, ‘Okay, see you tomorrow,’ and I hung up the phone. I didn’t want to know.”
The “Ian” that Boudreau refers to is possibly Ian Anderson, who served as a “Team Services Manager” with the Capitals from 2007 to 2014. Anderson is now the Director of Analytics with the Philadelphia Flyers, a position he has held since the 2019-20 season.
During his younger days, Ovechkin was spotted off and on at nightclubs where he’d sometimes end up in the DJ booth.
Given Boudreau’s mention of Mike Knuble, the curfew calling likely didn’t happen until the veteran forward signed a two-year deal with the club ahead of the 2009-10 campaign. During that season, the team’s top five point producers were 26 years old or younger, including Ovechkin, who was just 23.
The 2009-10 Capitals won the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL’s top team in the regular season, posting a 54-15-13 record. Ovechkin recorded 109 points (50g, 59a) in 72 games and finished as the runner-up for league MVP to Henrik Sedin.
