In 31 career games against the Predators, Ovechkin has 32 points (20 goals, 12 assists), including 19 (11 goals, eight assists) in 16 games at Bridgestone Arena. He has never scored a hat trick against the Predators but has four two-goal games.
“I just remember everybody talked about him shooting the puck from his spot (in the left circle). That was the number one,” Trotz said. “But when he first played in Nashville, the thing that stood out as much as the skill was how frigging big he was (6-foot-3, 238 pounds) and how physical he was.
“And we had no answer for him from that spot.”
After Trotz was hired by the Capitals in 2014, he gained an even greater appreciation for Ovechkin.
“I always say ‘Ovi’ was a good teammate,” Trotz said. “He's pretty grounded for a megastar, and I think what stood out is he's extremely likable. With ‘Ovi’ retiring, I said to someone, ‘If he retires, I'd love for him to be my neighbor because he would be a fun guy to be around.’ He just is. He makes the game fun and he has personality.”
During Trotz’s four seasons with the Capitals, they were 205-89-34, won the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL’s top team during the regular season twice (2015-16, 2016-17) and finished first in the Metropolitan Division three times (2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18). Ovechkin scored a League-high 185 goals during that span, including two of his NHL-record tying nine 50-goal seasons (53 in 2014-15, 50 in 2015-16).
Washington continued to be frustrated in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, though, losing in the second round each of Trotz’s first three seasons, including to rival Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017. By then, Trotz and Ovechkin were each fighting the narrative that they couldn’t win the Stanley Cup.
“We were both on sort of the same path,” Trotz said. “We were both trying to do it for a long time, and we were trying so hard that almost, in some ways, it might have got in our own way.”
The turning point was a heart-to-heart meeting between coach and captain after the Capitals lost the first two games of the 2018 Eastern Conference First Round to the Columbus Blue Jackets in overtime. Trotz remembers his initial message to Ovechkin being, “We can still win this,” but the conversation went deeper than that.
“I said, ‘I'm not going to be defined by a trophy, if I win it or not, and you shouldn't either because of what you've done for the game,’” Trotz recalled. “How many kids want to be Alex Ovechkin? You go to any minor hockey rink, and there's kids with the yellow lace tied around their pants and they're wearing the yellow laces in their skates, and they're got the jersey tucked in and they’ve got a tinted visor. I said, ‘That doesn't just happen. That's making a difference.’”
Then, Trotz asked Ovechkin for a little more.
“He always scored in the playoffs, but we would fall short,” Trotz said. “And I just said, ‘O, if you can, get it to the next level, like blocking that shot, and doing these little things, the sort of dirty things that take zero talent.’ I knew he wasn't afraid of it. And I said, ‘They're following you now, but they'll really follow.’
“And he did it the rest of the way.”
Washington came back to defeat Columbus in six games before finally getting past Crosby and Pittsburgh in six games in the second round. After defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games in the Eastern Conference Final, the Capitals rolled over the Vegas Golden Knights in five games in the Stanley Cup Final to capture their first championship.
