MIKE KNUBLE KNEW WHEN he signed his two-year contract to join the Washington Capitals in July 2009 that he was there for one primary reason: to play opposite Alex Ovechkin, the young-gun Russian superstar who – while not in the same conversation as Wayne Gretzky at the time – was in his prime and piling up goals.
Knowing his role was one thing, but it was entirely another to actually line up on the ice alongside Ovechkin. And in that first game, Knuble, who was 37 at the time and made a career out of complementing guys and making a home for himself around the net, had one thought.
Don’t screw this up.
“The biggest thing, OK, there was a couple things, but the No. 1 thing was, you don’t want to slow him down,” said Knuble with a laugh. For Knuble, it wasn’t as simple as just taking on a key role; he was filling big skates. The last linemate Ovechkin had was countryman Viktor Kozlov, who, while not scoring as many goals himself, clicked well with No. 8 and helped Ovechkin to seasons of 65 goals in 2007-08 and 56 goals in 2008-09.
The pressure was on for the veteran Knuble going into a year where Washington was expected to make significant strides. “He’s trending as a 100-point guy, and you’re playing with him.” Knuble said. “You’re linked to him. You don’t want his percentage to go down. If now he’s down to 80 points, you’re like, ‘Who are they going to point the finger at?’ ”
But when the puck dropped, it was business as usual. Knuble felt the pressure melting away with each stride, as he and Ovechkin benefitted greatly from their time together on that deep 2009-10 Capitals squad. Over those first two seasons, playing primarily with each other, Ovechkin and Knuble combined for 135 goals and 287 points.
While there are obviously benefits to playing on a line with arguably the greatest goal-scorer ever – who sits four goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL record of 894 – there’s a lot more that goes into being Ovechkin’s linemate.
But what, exactly, is that?
Well, first of all, you couldn’t simply ride the opposite wing and hope the goals would just happen thanks to the star power on your left. Knuble had been around long enough to know that. It takes a lot of grit to play that role with Ovechkin. “You had to get him the puck when you could,” Knuble said, “and do some of the legwork.”
For the Toronto-born right winger, that meant winning board battles, finding the open man and then getting to the front of the net in case of a rebound or deflection chance.
At the same time, while the goal was obviously to get Ovechkin the puck as much as possible, that wasn’t Knuble’s sole purpose. Despite having made a living out of crashing the crease and getting to the dirty areas, Knuble had to take matters into his own hands when he could. When he had the puck, he’d have to make the right decision rather than automatically passing it to ...
