Why did Laviolette turn down dinner with Ovi? Quarantine originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
For any coach taking the reins of a new team, getting to know your players is probably at the very top of your to-do list.
So turning down a dinner invitation from Alex Ovechkin, his new captain (not to mention the greatest hockey player to ever skate in a Capitals uniform) is ill-advised. But the first-year Capitals coach had a pretty valid, and very 2020, excuse.
“He texted me the other night and wanted to know if I wanted to go to dinner,” Laviolette said during a videoconference call with reporters on Tuesday. “I said ‘I’m quarantining right now. I can’t go.'
“I know him and he knows me, but we don’t really know each other that well. So that would have been a great opportunity, but it wasn’t able to happen.”
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Laviolette was named head coach of the Washington Capitals in September. With the league forced to make modifications to the schedule and structure of the 2021 season due to the pandemic, there will be little in the way of an adjustment period for the veteran head coach.
“It’s just completely different. Typically a coach would be here a month before the season starts, and in the rink,” he said. Instead, he’s spent the majority of the offseason at home, getting to know his players over the phone and making preparations for one of the more unusual seasons of his 18-year NHL head coaching career.
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Laviolette's still got some time to build chemistry with his superstar winger and the rest of the team before their 2021 campaign begins Jan. 14. Capitals training camp begins Jan. 3 and he will likely put in as many hours building chemistry off the ice as he will on it.
“Everybody’s excited to get going. Everybody’s excited to learn a new system,” he said. “I’m excited to teach a system they haven’t seen before and work on, again, the identity of being able to play in a ferocious way. I’m excited to do it but it’s made it a little more challenging.”
