Yahoo Sports Jose Theodore Shares Memories Of Young Alex Ovechkin, Slams Critics & Talks Goals Record 'I've Never Seen A Guy Who Wants To Win As Bad As Him'
Jose Theodore remembers hosting a young Alex Ovechkin and his Washington Capitals teammates for a Super Bowl Sunday party after the team's insane 5-4 comeback win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Ovechkin didn't want to drive home and chose to sleep over, but the only bed available was in the guest bedroom, with no clean sheets or bedding. So, the young captain plopped down on the bare mattress and spent the night, waking up with a red, scratched-up back in the morning. Still, he insists it was the "best sleep ever."
It's one of several fond memories Theodore, who spent 2008 to 2010 with the Capitals, has of a 25-year-old Ovechkin in his prime, but what has stuck out to him the most was how good of a leader he was, even back then in his more reckless era.
"When I saw Ovi and I saw the way that he would practice and the way that he would approach the game, I would have a lot of arguments with people outside the game (who said), 'Oh, Ovi is not like Crosby, he only thinks about himself.' That would get me riled up because I would say, 'You don’t know. Ovi’s the kind of guy that if he stays two minutes on the ice, it’s not because he wants to stay two minutes and score a goal, it’s because he really believes he can make a difference and he can be the game-changer and he wants that responsibility,'" Theodore said.
Theodore is still a fast defender of his former teammate, insisting that he's the "best player he's played with" and the leader that the Capitals have needed. The same fact would stand even if Ovechkin never won a Stanley Cup, but Theodore was there in Vegas when he did in 2018.
"He was one of the best leaders. Even if he didn't score, he was still happy, he was in a good mood, even if he played bad... He didn't deserve all that negativity about not being a team player or not being a leader, that would really piss me off," Theodore said. "I've never seen a guy who wants to win as bad as him."
Looking back, Theodore admitted that, at the time, he didn't think that Ovechkin would be in the same conversation as Wayne Gretzky; young Ovi was potting goals left and right, but to Theodore, 895 was just impossible to reach in today's game.
"The goalies were too good, the players were too good," he reasoned.
But now, with Ovechkin just 22 goals away from breaking Gretzky's record, Theodore's not surprised and believes that he can do what he once thought was unachievable.
"The reason we're talking about Gretzky's record, it's because he has that passion. That's a thing that you can't fake, you can't pretend," Theodore said. "He's passionate about scoring goals the way he was as a kid."
To this day, Theodore, who also played with the Montreal Canadiens, Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild and Florida Panthers, ranks Ovechkin as his top teammate.
"He's definitely the best player I've played with," Theodore said.
Tune in to Theodore's full interview with Sammi Silber here at The Hockey News, and also on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
