The season has yet to begin (heck training camp hasn't even started) and people are already not giving Alex Ovechkin a chance to "turn his game around" with new coach Barry Trotz. In a segment on TSN, Darren Dreger (who I personally like very much as an analyst) said:

"It's going to be interesting... How many coaches can this guy and team chew through before you take a hard look if change is required and maybe it's time to move on" (Per Hope Smoke - Twitter)

While I agree that the Washington Capitals' coaching carousel has been a nightmare the last few seasons, and that the responsibility has to be on the players more, it's what Dreger says later that irks me:

"Trotz needs to make Ovechkin a more accountable player and a more accountable captain... Trotz likes Ovechkin's foot speed and how he moves on the left side. I'm not sure Alex will buy in. I guess we'll wait and see." (Hope Smoke - Twitter)

Ovechkin will buy in because he wants to win. He wants to prove that he is one of the games greats and, if he wants to succeed in that, he has to trust the coaching staff. When Adam Oates asked Ovechkin to move to the right side two seasons ago, he did and he went on a goal scoring tear. Everyone always comes back to last seasons -35 +/- rating (a stat that is absolutely worthless unless you play fantasy) and point fingers at Ovechkin for not being an all around player, but all of those goals against were not Ovechkin's fault alone.

It's not his fault that Adam Oates was a terrible head coach and the entire team played poorly. Ovechkin, Backstrom, Ward, Brouwer, and a few other notables, played their parts while the rest of the team failed - miserably.

The Caps were awful as a team in 5-on-5 play. They had a very unbalanced defensive corps with some inexperienced players. Holby was too inconsistent, and then the system (oh the system!) was confusing.

It won't be like that this year.

Trotz is a completely different animal than Oates or Hunter or even Boudreau (and definitely Hanlon). He knows how to control a team and gain the trust of the people that give a crap, and Ovechkin does care. He knows his role and that he needs to "fill in the gaps" in his game.

Should Ovechkin be captain? That's a whole other post, and I'll get to that later. However, Ovechkin is a leader on this team because he plays with such passion that it can rub off on this teammates. The argument of Ovechkin's defense and "lack of caring" will never go away no matter what he does, but there have been numerous times the "Golden Child" Sydney Crosby's "controller disconnected" in defensive zone, and no one blamed him because he doesn't get the media scrutiny as harshly as Ovechkin does.

Dreger was a little premature in his assumption of Ovechkin and the upcoming season. At least let the first week go by before criticizing a player to try and get some extra viewers.

"I guess we'll wait and see".

More to come...

Follow me on Twitter: @_Mellin_

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