For the first time since his firing on Monday, Bruce Boudreau has spoken. He sat down with Tarik El-Bashir of the Washington Post to talk about his side of the story, here are some of his more important quotes, but the whole thing is certainly worth a read.
On his reaction to the firing: “I told George this on Monday: I tried every trick that I knew in 18 years and nothing was working.” Boudreau said. “I told him, ‘You’re doing what you have to do.’ I thought I was going to be here forever, but this was something I thought that had to be done. Am I disappointed? Absolutely.”
On the phone call he received Monday morning.
“When nothing happened Sunday, I thought, ‘Okay, we’re playing St. Louis and Pittsburgh and maybe that’s going to be the telltale,’’ Boudreau said in the living room of his Potomac home. “But I was driving to work at 6:10 on Monday and I got a text. It was George. He said, call me when you wake up. I said, ‘Uh oh, that’s not good.’ He told me to come to his house.”
On whether the team quit on him at any point this season.
“I’m so naive, I never thought that could happen until people started bringing it up to me in the last day or two,” he said. “I have to go back and look at the games because I can’t imagine that. When I played, I would always play for the guy next to me, not the coach.”
I expect more to come out in the next few days, but this is a good start. For more on the Capitals, head over to Japers' Rink.