Alex Ovechkin loves to score goals. Afterwards, sometimes he leaps in into the glass, sometimes he does a jig, sometimes he tumbles to the ground like a building loaded with TNT. That last one happened on Sunday night after Ovi’s fortieth goal of the season.
“I think sniper was up there, shot me in foot,” Ovechkin told reporters after the game.
When I asked around the Capitals locker room at the Kettler on Monday, I was hoping the learn that Ovi’s teammates had seen the fall — or at least the replay — and had been giving Ovechkin a hard time. Troy Brouwer didn’t let me down.
“I saw him fall over, like he always does,” Brouwer told me. “Have you watched his toe picks? Seriously, I’m not even joking, have you ever watched his toe picks? How many toe picks do you think he has a game? Two or three. Watch him. He falls over more than anybody I’ve seen in my life and that’s what we laugh at.”
“At some point it’s not the equipment,” Brouwer concluded.
As for roomies Tom Wilson and Michael Latta, they learned of the fall via Twitter and (likely) an Ian Oland GIF.
“We watched it together,” said Latta, who bought Ovi’s sniper explanation. “Oh, well they’re out there sometimes,” he said. “They pick certain games and certain guys.”
Like Brouwer, Wilson thought it was normal to see Ovi pull a Bambi.
“I saw people saying ‘careful on the sidewalks, it’s slippy out there with the Ovi fall,” Wilson said. “He falls down a lot when he celebrates. It’s pretty normal that he’ll celebrate and then end up on the ice.”