The Alex Ovechkin ‘Conspiracy Theory’

Alex Ovechkin says he’s out “4-5 weeks.” The Washington Capitals say he’s just “week-to-week.” So who’s right? Comcast’s Russ Thaler has a theory. Check that. He has a conspiracy theory.

In actuality, the “report” the team is disputing isn’t a report at all! It’s an interview Ovechkin gave Dmitry Chesnokov after Saturday night’s win over the Florida Panthers. It was an interview witnessed by others. It was conducted in Russian, the native tongue of both men, and it was recorded so that it could be transcribed and printed on yahoo.com. Have a look at the interview with Alexander Ovechkin.

In the interest of full disclosure, I know Dmitry Chesnokov personally, and he has facilitated interviews for me with Semyon Varlamov and Alexander Semin. Dmitry was the translator for both interviews since I know about four words in Russian. Never once have either of the players disputed any of the translation on those interviews, not one word ...

So why would Ovi say he’s our for at least a month, while the team downplays it?

If the team is listing Alex as “week to week”, then maybe in his mind “four to five weeks” seems about when he’ll be back to feeling like he did before the injury. Why risk further injury so early in the season, when the team is doing well enough, before the intensity and immediacy picks up, when the Olympics could be jeopardized by a premature return?

Not much of a conspiracy theory: he’s skated and practiced with the team, testing the injury, and he knows better than anyone what kind of pain he’s in; there’s no reason for Ovechkin to rush his return, especially when the Caps have a comfortable division lead; he wants to play in the Olympics, an event that (obviously) doesn’t come along too often. Really, it all makes a lot of sense.