Former MVP Alex Ovechkin may not being seeing the ice much these days, but the Washington Capitals look like they don’t need him to.
Despite getting just 13 1/2 minutes in during Monday’s Game 2, Ovechkin’s team eeked by the New York Rangers on the road and look to have the momentum as the series shifts back to Washington.
The Capitals are favored by 1 1/2 goals on Bovada, with a -155 moneyline.
They are now 4-2 on the road in the postseason, yet only 1-2 at home. They won the decisive Game 7 against the Boston Bruins on the road.
They’ll certainly need the most out of Ovechkin with his reduced minutes.
“To be honest, it’s not even something that we notice. We don’t go down the sheet at the end of the game and say, ‘How much did ‘Ovi’ play?’ That’s just not something that we do,” Capitals defenseman Karl Alzner told the Associated Press. “You know he wants to play more, and he’s frustrated by not playing 20 minutes. But he doesn’t care – he wants to win that game. Playing 13 minutes, he goes out and scores the most important goal of the game. It doesn’t really matter how much he plays; he’s going to come up big.”
Ovechkin led all Washington’s forwards in ice time during the regular season, and has more goals than anyone (3) on the team in the postseason to go along with six assists. Yet the team has elected to sit him for long stretches recently, especially when the team is leading.
“If guys are getting upset about ice time, and that’s all you’re worrying about, then you’re off. You’re just not going to play good,” Alzner said. “I’ve seen that happen to a lot of guys.”
Ovechkin is trying to say all the right things, and even scored the game’s most important goal, a go-ahead power-play score that gave the Caps the win. But his comments to the Associated Press show frustration mounting. After 
Monday’s game, he said: “You have to suck it up and use (the) time … Dale is giving to me. … Sometimes, if you’re not (out) there, you feel like you’re not in (the) game, but if you have 10-second shift or 5-second shift, you just have to go there and do something. It’s kind of hard.”
New York has won only one of its last six visits to Washington.