Frederic struck the star, wasn’t starstruck
Not backing away from Ovechkin
When Trent Frederic was asked on Sunday about Brendan Lemieux, with whom he has previously tangled, the Bruins’ rookie forward derisively referred to the Rangers’ scrapper simply by his sweater number “48.”
Frederic and Lemieux are currently toiling on the same NHL plane as bottom-sixers tasked with stirring up mayhem. A little trash talk is to be expected.
There was no such gameplaying when Frederic spoke on Thursday about his runins with future Hall of Famer Alex OvecHkin on Wednesday night. He knew this was no Brendan Lemieux he was dealing with.
But he wasn’t about to apologize, either. And while some may view Frederic’s actions as displaying disrespect to the 713-goal scorer, the Bruin said his sandpaper approach was the exact opposite of that.
“I think I was just playing him hard,” said Frederic via Zoom. “He’s a good player, so anytime you can get a good check on him, obviously you’re trying to do it. Just playing him hard. The respect I give him is just by playing him hard.”
As for the Heavens-to-Betsy, you-can’t-do-that-to-superstars school of thought?
Well, Ovechkin is not exactly Mitch Marner. He is a 6foot-3, 236-pound tank who has as many road kills as he does goals. It is what makes him unique in the stratosphere he inhabits.
He’s also been suspended multiple times for bad hits. A borderline Ovechkin hit ended Brandon Carlo‘s rookie season just before the playoffs, giving him a concussion that lingered well into the offseason. And Ovechkin had no problem with dropping the
gloves with Andrei Svechnikov and knocking the then-teenager out a couple of years ago.
Frederic was asked if Ovechkin’s style gave him more leeway to play him that way.
“He’s a big boy. He plays hard. He finishes checks, so yeah, he gives it out just as much as he takes it,” said Frederic.
Early in the third, Frederic knocked down Ovechkin with a check that the Caps’ star clearly didn’t like. Frederic circled back and quickly dropped the gloves. After Ovechkin demonstrably declined the invitation, Frederic admitted he was a little rash in that instance.
“I thought it was kind of natural,” said Frederic. “I think when I dropped him, he went in the boards weird, and when he got up, he wasn’t happy about it. The read I got was, ‘I don’t know if you want to fight me or what?’ So that’s the read I got. Maybe (the gloves) came off a little quick. But I was just trying to protect myself at the same time, too.”
Then, with 5:30 left in regulation, after the two players came together along the boards, Frederic gave Ovechkin a couple of short cross-checks across the hands. Ovechkin’s response — a spear to Frederic’s groin area — was over the top. Stunningly, only matching minors were given out. On Thursday, the Department of Player Safety caught up to Ovechkin, handing out the maximum fine of $5,000. A power play at the time would surely have been more to the Bruins’ liking than the meaningless fine, but Frederic is not ready to question the league.
“It’s out of my pay grade,” said Frederic. “The NHL does a good job in all that stuff, so I just leave it up to them.”
While it would seem unlikely that Ovechkin will go out of his way to renew hostilities with Frederic in the return match on Friday, this Capitals roster also has the likes of Tom Wilson and
Brenden Dillon. Stay tuned.
Practice makes perfect
The B’s on Thursday practiced at a high tempo, finishing the session off with some five-on-five play. There was a message in that.
“We are a skating team!” coach Bruce Cassidy implored to his troops as they gathered for their post-practice stretch. Cassidy feels his team has gotten away from that part of its identity recently.
“I think we’re not playing at a high enough pace,” said Cassidy. “If there was an easy answer (as to why) I’d give it to you. Some of it is personnel that we’ve changed, so we’ve got to get them playing at a higher pace that we’re used to. We’ve had some new people in our lineup. Some of it we’ve tried to emphasize getting bigger, so maybe we lose a little pace. And some of it is just our play that we haven’t stressed enough. You try and adjust for opponents every night and you’re trying to do certain things, maybe you lose track of the forest for the trees sometimes and just say, ‘Hey, let’s get going.’ Simplify and get on top of them quicker. I think it’s a little bit of everything.”
Cassidy sees it in the forecheck
arriving late and not creating turnovers, thus leading to easier breakouts for the opponents.
It’s also a mindset, said Cassdy. He used the example of Sean Kuraly, who had a bad turnover that led to Washington’s tying goal. He lauded Kuraly’s work on the B’s top-ranked penalty kill, but his overall game is not clicking.
“I think some other parts of his game have leaked oil,” said Cassidy. “( Wednesday) night I thought he had some turnovers where I don’t think he skated, which again goes to pace. A player will call them bad decisions, but you make better decisions when your feet are moving.”
Odds and ends
Tuukka Rask did not practice (maintenance, according to Cassidy) and Jaroslav Halak will get his scheduled start on Friday against the Caps. Charlie Coyle (COVID protocol list) also remained off the ice.
Cassidy mixed up his bottom pairs, moving Urho Vaakanainen on the right side to play with Jarred Tinordi and Connor Clifton playing with Steven Kampfer. The guess here is the Tinordi pair gets the call because of the Caps’ size and physicality, but that’s hardly a slam dunk.