On Frozen Blog

It was a most unlikely scene: with one of the season’s largest contingents of media assembled at Ketter Saturday, none other than Alexander Semin stepped up onto a small platform and stood before hordes of voice recorders, microphones, and television cameras and fielded every question asked of him — most thoughtfully and reflectively, too. He did so with his countryman Dmitry Chesnokov at his side, translating, and he pledged to make regular appearances before the media all season . . . so long as Dmitry did the translating.

You might recall: when Alexander Semin decides to speak, hockey gets a lot more interesting. (“What’s so special about [Crosby]? I don’t see anything special there.”) But there was no controversy in his remarks on Saturday, just a lot of poignant observations about the departures of Donald Brashear and Sergei Fedorov.

“It’s very bad that he left,” Semin said of Brashear. “He was always positive in the locker room. In the New York series, when he came on the ice the team played different, maybe because he gave us confidence as a team.”

And with respect to Sergei Fedorov, Semin acknowledged that the Russian legend had a significant impact on him.

“Sergei was a very, very special player, on and off the ice. When you were on the ice [with him], you could learn from him, talk to him, and even when he didn’t talk to you you can just watch him and learn a lot.”

Semin articulated deep and sincere appreciation for his departed teammates, but not regrets.

“I like this team. I want to stay here. And I want to win the Cup with this team.”  

This is a compressed camp (Olympics) for an outsized population of roster prospects — 68 were rostered as of Saturday, and the season opener in Boston is less than three weeks away. In a light-hearted moment with the media the head coach suggested that the enlarged camp roster allowed for fully three teams to compete for the Duschene Cup.

Initially, Bruce Boudreau said that “there might be one spot open” among the forward ranks before acknowledging that a wow factor by an upstart/insurgent forward could force management to change their mind. On defense, he might keep seven, he might keep eight.

When Boudreau was asked to identify what his team’s identity was, he offered first a litany of characteristics (“never quitting,” “aggressive style,” “playing for each other”) every coach would, but at the end of his reflection he actually honed in on what I believe is the team’s principal identity: there is no other NHL team that celebrates its goals as happily, with unmitigated joy, as five-man units — with as much sense of unity — as does Washington. It is a glee club in red when goals are scored.

A number of players yesterday acknowledged that the disappointment of losing game 7 to Pittsburgh in May remained fresh in their recollections. But when I asked Ovi where he saw the team today relative to the disappointment of that night, he answered immediately: “On top . . . on top of everybody.”

Ovechkin bristled when a reporter raised the specter of the team’s core group potentially fracturing as important contracts end at the end of this season, suggesting that there was a time-sensitive imperative to win the Stanley Cup this season. “We’re talking about right now [the possibility] that next year somebody go away, but I think everybody wants to stay here, there is a great atmosphere [here] right now — the crazy fans — the atmosphere is unbelievable.”

But instantly the questioning atmosphere turned jovial, when a reporter suggested that Alex’s upper body looked bigger from summer training.

“I [take] some injections,” he deadpanned.

The issue of performance enhancing substances, you’ll recall, dogged the Capitals at the start of the offseason. It was the very first question I put to George McPhee yesterday. In light of the fact that there’s been no corroborating evidence since, I asked, shouldn’t the league’s leadership come out and loudly clean the record. 

“There was nothing to that,” the GM replied. “It’s been vetted, the league has looked into it and there’s nothing to it. We knew there was nothing to it.”

The other thorny issue this offseason for the organization was, and remains, Michael Nylander. In light of the fact that Nylander has reported, it was startling to listen to McPhee suggest that “there’s some discussion with European teams” about a change of scenery, implying, I think, that the Capitals are part of that discussion. The path to resolution in this matter is most unclear, but early in September 2009, it’s difficult to imagine Michael Nylander playing out the remaining two years of his deal here.

The manager did his share of antagonizing in his NHL playing career, and Saturday I closed my questioning of him by asking if while he played he ever dropped ‘em with a combatant the size of Joe Finley.

“Six-five was my limit . . . I felt I could handle anybody up to six-three, but after that it was like trying to throw marshmellows at somebody.”