Playing heavy is not about being big and hitting. Hitting is part of it, but big forwards cycling the puck. Making defensemen fight thru big players is all part of playing heavy.
So, yea, Orpik hits. Alzner is big and strong. Battling in the corner with him to the puck wears you down.
Other teams with regularity call the caps style heavy. Chimera is not a bruiser, but he is heavy and he does dig. Like Beagle, like Laich, Like Orpik, like Fehr, like Ward.
Yes Backstrom is heavy. He will occasionally throw a big hit like Niskanen does but he is big. Pushing against him when he has the puck behind the net is leaning on a load. He is very strong and unless you are bigger and stronger than he is its a lot of work to battle him.
The Redskins in the Riggo/Hogs days played heavy. They ran the ball and wore the opposition down. That is how the Caps play
It doesn't matter how much the Caps wear a team down, you are never going to win 4 series in a row if you average 2 goals/game in the playoffs.
Caps this year averaged 2 goals/game in the playoffs - same number as the past 3 playoffs.
Why? Because the opposition does the same thing as always against us regardless of the coach. They put their top defensive pairing on Ovi's line, make him consistently have to work, just make sure they contain Ovi and don't let him dominate a game, and try to make our secondary guys beat them. Sure, sometimes we can get a game winning goal by Semin or Ward and win a series - but it has proven to not be good enough to win series evepn .500 of the time. Our secondary guys have proven to never be good enough in a 7 game series consistently.
If the Caps want to play a heavy and play a wear the other team down type game - they have to improve their centers big time, or acquire All Star caliber players in return. Look at the Kings. They are the definition of what a heavy team does, but they led the NHL in scoring last year when they averaged 3.5 goals in the playoffs. Almost twice of what the Caps average. Also, they went after Richards/Carter hard when they were available, and went after Gaborik when he was available. They also just went after and got Lucic. Those players are no joke and All Star caliber or All Star proven players. They also had a group of centers that are a lot better and deeper than the Caps group that allowed them to play their game. Kopitar, Carter, Richards, and Stoll is very strong down the middle.
Kuznetsov
