- Nobody is really performing great. That's by itself a decent reason to (continue to) try different things.
- Of all Caps forwards, Wilson recently provided the most spark, and Williams arguably the least. A good reason to feed Wilson more chances in the top-6/9, at the expense of Williams.
- The one thing we more or less know, is that Ovi-Backstrom-Oshie is a bad possession line that's overall performing as less than the sum of its parts. Another reason to try other options.
Putting the puzzle together (and keeping it working) with this roster is a legitimately difficult task. Quite possibly Trotz can't think the game at a high-enough level to do it, so his decisions are based on more basic rules of thumb -- that are decent in general, but also create blindspots that he does not notice.
It is what it is. Trotz is a pretty good coach overall, just maybe not elite.
Right now, it looks to me like -- somehow, the Caps will need to get on a huge roll, pre-bye-week level, to compensate for everything -- intrinsic chemistry issues, suboptimal coaching, etc.
But it starts with cutting down on the dumb. The one thing they can control -- when you're trying to gain some traction, at least don't shoot yourself in the foot.
And work on crisp passing in practice. Sometimes this team looks like it's been ignoring fundamentals for a month.