Post-Game Talk: 3pm Blues @ Caps

[txpd]

Only in the sense that everything is mental. IMO they just don't plan ahead and it kills them when they need to reach another level of performance and can't get along with yet more efforting making the difference

I see how good the Capitals can be in the playoffs up to the point where they have won three games. Repeatedly. That doesn't show me that they don't have a playoff game. It tells me that the choke is on the table when they get those playoff series leads. If your team isn't up to the playoffs, you lose. You don't get a two game lead and choke

 

[Midnight Judges]

Lets be honest. Trotz has shown the reason why he has so many wins and has such longevity as a head coach. Under Boudreau the team emotionally collapsed after losing to Montreal. They became erratic. Under Trotz after that same failure, the team has improved. You would have to consider that after the roster damage done this off season that they have yet again improved. I think at that level he is special.

His problem is that he just can not manage the increasing pile of choke the team has produced and how that effects his group come playoffs. In my view the playoff problems are entirely mental. As good as Trotz has been at the mental rebuild required by each playoff failure come the next regular season, he seems lost at the same work come playoffs.

Meanwhile. Anyone else thinking that this three goals per game Holtby is giving up is resulting as much from Korn being gone than the rookies on defense?

I think Trotz has been too slow to react and adjust during every playoff series since he got here.

For example, Toronto was getting all sorts of high tip ins last year. It was their bread an butter. Trotz eventually reacted but only after a few games. Caps started putting a body on the high tip player and Leafs stopped getting those goals.

The year before Pittsburgh kept luring our guys too deep into the offensive zone and then making steep outlet passes and getting 2 on 1s. We'd have two or three guys behind their net when the puck was leaving their zone. It was friggin rampant. Again, Trotz ultimately made some good adjustments...right in time for game 5 or so.

It's not a coincidence that he's been in the NHL for so long and never out of the second round.

 

[AtNightWeFly]

Maybe he should try setting the tone instead of looking to see what the other guy does first. Or am I crazy here?

 

[HTFN]

Maybe he should try setting the tone instead of looking to see what the other guy does first. Or am I crazy here?

I don't think so. They've become very fond of the "Jack of All Trades" part of the saying, but it's as if they've forgotten how the rest of it goes.

Whether it's a Trotz thing or something more Capitals-centric, there seems like there's been a long running streak of pride in this team's ability to "play any game" against any opponent. I've never exactly seen why that's such a positive. It's a team full of big bodies with some skilled lynch pins, but it hasn't had what I would call an 'identifiable style' for a while now.

Oates' team looked like it had been issued a vague command to "do hockey better". This team has succeeded where that one failed and now the product looks competent, but ultimately when the cards hit the table there's nothing resembling a cohesive identity to fall back on. Now the plan is "try harder to do hockey better", their efforts appear scattered and inconsistent, their communication is off, and I think it's in part because there's no big mantra or sense of who they are that can answer the inevitable "now what?" when it comes.

Like him or not, I'd bet the Dale Hunter team had an answer to that question. Even if it was only "allow one more goal, and I might just kill you myself."

 

[traparatus]

Maybe he should try setting the tone instead of looking to see what the other guy does first. Or am I crazy here?

How nice would it be to become a trend-setting team instead of one that is always trying to adapt to what someone else is doing?

We have an opportunity to do it, too. Create two scoring bottom-6 lines. We are always scratching an offensively capable forward.

Eller, Wilson, Connolly, DSP, Stephenson, Chiasson - there are two offensively capable 3rd lines there. We suck at playing in our own zone. We don't have a good containment defense and our one-on-one and net front defense is nothing to write home about. If you suck at playing in your own end, just play in theirs. Roll 4 lines that are capable of maintaining possession in the offensive zone and let your opposition figure out how to defend against it.

I think Mike Sullivan could take this team to the Stanley Cup. Barry Trotz is always trying to figure out a way to make his team play 'good' hockey. It's passive, reactionary and it leaves his team scrambling for answers in every playoff series.

 

[maacoshark]

Slowing the game down better mentally, better using their skills/awareness, driving the net more and shooting for rebounds. There's still the predictability of their breakouts when pressured, too. It's mostly about better applying their skills, sense and awareness collectively in tightening up beyond what raw effort and their baseline defensive soundness affords them. They can get by as-is but there's a lot more detail they can still stand to add to be even more formidable.

Beyond that they really need Kuznetsov, Vrana and Burakovsky to take big strides if they're going to be deep enough. Kuznetsov in particular.

To me everything you said is part if the structure that you mentioned before.