Late in the Washington Capitals’ Game 6 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday, Alex Ovechkin was assessed a 10-minute misconduct for sharing words with the on-ice officials along with sarcastically applauding them.
Ovechkin slashed Carolina’s Saku Maenalanen with the 5-2 game out of Washington’s reach. Then, the captain skated toward some of the officials, clapping his hands.
Alex Ovechkin slashes Saku Maenalanen, applauds the penalty call and gets ejected pic.twitter.com/cnijrY8PcE
— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) April 23, 2019
“They make weird calls all game, but not surprised. I don’t want to be bad guy or something, but it wasn’t fun,” Ovechkin said after the game.
Earlier in the third period, Ovechkin thought he had the tying goal but it was disallowed for goaltender interference.
The game misconduct he was assessed won’t affect Ovechkin’s status for Game 7 of this first-round series, to be played Wednesday night at Capital One Arena.
Coach Todd Reirden tried to spin it positively, saying that four or five years ago, observers would complain that Ovechkin wasn’t getting fired up about the game.
“Four or five years ago, it would be like, ’Well, why doesn’t he react and get mad?’” Reirden said. “And now he’s unbelievably passionate about trying to do everything he can about pushing our team to the next level and knows that he’s going to do everything in his power to help us do it.”
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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