Bruce Boudreau was Washington Capitals head coach for parts of five seasons from 2007-2011, leading the team to four consecutive Southeast Division titles and a President’s Trophy as the top team in the league. He also had the honor of helping Alex Ovechkin to his best year as a pro — 65 goals and 112 points in 2007-08 — which gave Bruce a bit of a reputation as an Ovi Whisperer.
Recently, Boudreau shared his thoughts with TSN’s Jay Onrait on whether Ovi could overtake Wayne Gretzky’s goals record of 894 this season. Ovechkin currently sits 42 tallies away from sole possession of first place entering 2024-25.
Boudreau is not as bullish as Spencer Carbery but still thinks Ovechkin can overtake Gretzky by the end of his career due to how seriously he’s taking his training. Ovi is under contract with Washington for two more years.
“I happened to FaceTime him, or he FaceTimed me about a week ago, and I said, ‘Stand back, give somebody else the phone, I want to see if you’re in good shape,'” Boudreau said. “He looked like he was in a lot better shape, and so I think he’s the type of guy, if you know Alex, that if somebody says you can’t do something, he’s going to try to prove you wrong.
“It’s very similar to like, if you can remember him, if somebody, if other coaches when he was younger would say, ‘Hey, just hit him, hit him, and hit him to slow him down,’ he’d go, ‘Oh yeah, you’re going to hit me? I’m going to hit you harder to make you not want to hit me.’ And I think that’s the attitude he’s going to bring into this season.”
When asked if Ovechkin could score 42 times or more this season, Boudreau, who works as an analyst for Monumental Sports Network, shared a perfect storm scenario for the team that he may or may not get in trouble for.
“I think the Caps would, I work for them, so I’ve got to watch what I’m saying, but I think the Caps would love for them to win and him get 37, so the season ticket sales for the following year would go nuts because everybody wants to see him get his 42nd goal,” Boudreau said. “But I mean, I don’t know if 42 is in the cards, but I would bet 35-plus is not out of the realm of possibility, and again, a lot depends on the power play.”
The Capitals added three players over the offseason that could help Ovechkin light the lamp more with an extra man, including forwards Pierre-Luc Dubois and Andrew Mangiapane and offensively potent defenseman Jakob Chychrun. Carbery also recently shared that Ovechkin will continue to double-shift on the power play because “the reward is still there for me.”
The most joyous part of Boudreau’s interview with Onrait may have been his talk about fashion or his lack thereof. Boudreau didn’t show up in a suit.
“Well, Jay, I’m an idiot,” Boudreau said. “And when I was packing to go from Hershey to here, I put my suit on there, but I evidently had my son’s suit top with my clothes. So when I went to put it on today, it’s got the Hulk Hogan muscular thing going. I just couldn’t get it over the arms. So I’m here with the shirt. Thank God I’m on tomorrow and I brought a different shirt. So it looks a little bit different anyway.”
“Well, I’m glad you have a shirt,” Onrait said.
“Yeah,” Boudreau replied.
“Because I don’t know if we could go shirtless,” Onrait said.
“If we went shirtless, it would be a minus rating,” Boudreau quipped.
