Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said Monday he thought the Blue Jackets were targeting the Capitals Alex Ovechkin in Sunday's game.
Today, Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock responded: Guilty as charged.
"That would be correct," Hitchcock said. "That's the name of the game. Why, is that against the rules now?"
Hitchcock made it clear he thought it "unfortunate" that Ovechkin suffered an upper-body injury in the second period of the Jackets' 5-4 overtime win. The league's two-time MVP is "week-to-week" according to the Capitals with what's believed to be a shoulder injury.
It remains unclear when Ovechkin suffered the injury. Boudreau believes it was in a scrum near the Jackets bench involving forwards Jason Chimera and Jared Boll at 1:11 of the period. Chimera shoved Ovechkin in response to a thunderous first-period hit. Boll grabbed Ovechkin after No. 8 threw a punch at Chimera. Boll said he was assessed a 10-minute misconduct for not letting go Ovechkin in a timely manner.
The Jackets' game plan, Boudreau told the Washington Post, was to "run or hit" Ovechkin every time he touched the puck. A reporter mentioned to Hitchcock that there's distinction between "run" and "hit." Hitchcock did not see it that way.
"Run, chase, hunt down, hit, whatever word you want to use that would be correct," Hitchcock said.
The teams meet again on April 3 in Nationwide Arena.
Hitchcock is a great admirer of Ovechkin's game -- a rare mix of skill, speed and nastiness. Ovechkin seem to relish a huge hit as much as he does a big goal. He does both with a smile.
On Sunday, Ovechkin rattled defenseman Rusty Klesla and Chimera with first-period hits.
"He had fun with it," Hitchcock said. "He got banged up on an unfortunate play. When you look at the start of the game, we were the ones on our asses . . . We had had enough of that so we started to hit back, which I liked.
"He's a very unique player because he gives it and he takes it. He doesn't whine or cry about getting hit. He has fun in that role because the more you give it to him, the more he gives it back.
"At least get him a little distracted so he's doing something other than putting the puck in the back of the net. He was coming after us and having fun and we were coming after him and having fun."
Ovechkin did not blame Chimera for shoving him near the bench, calling it “a moment of the game." Ovechkin could be seen flexing his shoulder as he, Chimera and Boll skated to the penalty box. He also got knocked to the ice by Raffi Torres several minutes later.
Chimera said Capitals defenseman Shaone Morrisonn challenged him to a fight late in the third period.
"One guy challenged me, the Morrisonn guy," Chimera said." I don’t know his first name. he’s a defenseman. It was going into overtime. I wasn’t going to fight then . . . I’m not the guy to turn down a fight, but we’re headed into overtime at that point. I play in overtime. I wanted to make something happen in overtime."
