Caps Coaching System/Structure/Strategy Thread

[LesDiablesRouges]

Mod approved.

If we can stay on-topic, this thread is purely to discuss in-depth the Capitals’ system, structure, and strategies, in reference to playing style, offensive structure, defensive structure, neutral zone shape and strategies, etc.

I just had an idea that it’d be nice for all of us to have an in-depth discussion about our styles of play in all areas and situations, in reference to coaches, players, and management.

Click to read more...

 

[895]

I've been anti-Reirden since the Carolina series.

But I'm seeing people calling for him to be fired which is insane. He has to finish the year. Maybe he gets fired if we lose in the first round again.

Forsythe can get fired anytime though.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

I think in an optimal world, Reirden wants to play a structured, open system, with solid team defense and structure. Opening the year, the offense was high-flying and firing on all cylinders, however, the team defense was inconsistent at times - there was still too many open forwards getting the puck in high-danger scoring areas and too many odd-man rushes for my liking.

Right now, we can't score and on top of that, our team defense is awful - opposition forwards are getting way, way too many high-scoring chances and significant possession in high-danger areas.

 

[ArmadilloThumb]

Add a solid D, put Orpik behind the bench as an Assistant, can the the slingshot, and go back to standing up on our blue line preventing entries/getting fast breakouts. That frees up the offense to fly high again.

This all went wrong with the slingshot. Going backwards is bad. That led to even weak teams using a heavy forecheck and throttling our offense.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

I also think that a key aspect of our play is crisp passing - starting in our defensive zone - beginning as breakout passes, allowing our forwards to enter the neutral zone with speed and further creating clear possession zone entries into offensive zones. We need possession in the offensive zone to allow our talented players to utilize their skill and skating to create high-scoring chances. Without clean zone entries with speed, we get no possession and we turn into a dump-and-chase team - something we are just not.

This is what has happened the last few weeks and it needs to be changed.

 

[Ridley Simon]

Meh

 

[artilector]

When in doubt, I blame the forwards This d-corps wasn't built to dominate anybody -- the Caps are paying Carlson for his offense, and the other d-men are mostly bargains that already exceed expectations if they can just hold the fort.

The forwards get paid the big bucks, they have the talent -- almost everything is a function of their effort, because that's what (mainly) determines what happens in the neutral zone, and that in turn determines who controls the game.

As far as forwards, for me the problems are roughly evenly split between:
1. Overall effort
2. Built-in motor issues in the top-6 (Backstorm, Ovi, Kuz, maybe Vrana too).
3. Natural ups and downs of a season
4. Reirden not having some of the answers
5. Salary cap issues that gutted bottom-6 scoring
6. BMac misfiring on Hagelin & Panik, so far.

Sounds like a lot, but I'm not sure it's qualitatively much different from the Cup winning year, other than bottom-6 scoring potential.

What does this have to do with the thread topic? Well, in terms of Reirden, I think right now it's not really about tactics, but rather about coaxing more effort out of the forwards, sometime relatively soon, in order to right the ship with enough time to get into a groove going into the playoffs.

 

[SherVaughn30]

Cashman, Arniel, Forsythe and goalie coach Scott Murray are all inadequate(I'm saying that nicely) coaches. Demote Reirden back to being an ssistant(if he takes it) and give me Laviolette/Gallant before another team hires them in the off season! The forwards keep cheating up the ice before the puck even leaves the D-Zone! Forget about the stretch pass and use quick touch passing(involves only 3 players) to get the puck out of the zone. It's what the Pens do to be effective keeping possession of the puck and attacking with at least 3 forwards. The forwards need to iron the message into their heads to sacrifice some offense for defense. Give support to the D and get back to sacrificing the body to block shots! And most of all skate hard and work hard, and not become complacent. Do it as close to 60 mins as you can!

Oh on the PP keeping moving, quick touch passing and shoot the puck if there is a lane. Stop looking for the perfect play and have Oshie/Wilson create screens/look for rebounds in front of the goalie. No more force feeding the puck to OV!

 

[AussieCapsFan]

I've been anti-Reirden since the Carolina series.

But I'm seeing people calling for him to be fired which is insane. He has to finish the year. Maybe he gets fired if we lose in the first round again.

Forsythe can get fired anytime though.

For the record, I'm not calling for him to be fired. I am speculating on the reality of it happening, and most seem to think it's too close to the playoffs for that to happen.

The biggest concern I have with Rierden and his assistants is that the players have tuned them out. Why do I believe this to be the case? They have been playing poorly for a few weeks now and there really isn't any change in the quality of their play.
You can definitely see that at times the effort is there but it's not consistent enough. And let's not confuse effort with desperate scrambling late in games to try and come back and tie it.
This kind of stuff seems to me like coaches who cannot get the players to buy into a system anymore and can't get the players motivated. And we all know that it's pretty much impossible to turn that around without firing the coach(es).
Anyway, I really hope I'm wrong about this.

 

[SherVaughn30]

For the record, I'm not calling for him to be fired. I am speculating on the reality of it happening, and most seem to think it's too close to the playoffs for that to happen.

The biggest concern I have with Rierden and his assistants is that the players have tuned them out. Why do I believe this to be the case? They have been playing poorly for a few weeks now and there really isn't any change in the quality of their play.
You can definitely see that at times the effort is there but it's not consistent enough. And let's not confuse effort with desperate scrambling late in games to try and come back and tie it.
This kind of stuff seems to me like coaches who cannot get the players to buy into a system anymore and can't get the players motivated. And we all know that it's pretty much impossible to turn that around without firing the coach(es).
Anyway, I really hope I'm wrong about this.

The players don't trust the system and I think most of them don't like playing for this coach staff. Who could blame them because they went from having a veteran coaching staff winning the Cup to having a rookie coaching staff that looks in over their heads, again! Trotz took away being aggressive offensively, but as a player you wanted to play for him and you would believe in his system. I feel like there is a big disconnect between the players and coaches. Reirden just feels so mundane, robotic as opposed to the players who are mostly with good character and personality. This team lacks emotion and that is a reflection of how Reirden is.

The alarming thing to me is the bad team play that you are seeing from the Capitals right now, is something that happens in preseason and in the first quarter of the regular season and not in the last quarter of the season. The team doesn't even have a good enough effort for 1/3 of each game! Giving a good close to 60 min game is something your roster has to build up over an 82 game schedule. So how can this team win 4 games in a 7 game series, with an amateur hour coaching staff and a roster that is not conditioned to play a 60 min game?!

This team as is, is just a 1st round exit in 4 to 5 games!

 

[francaisvolantsparis]

Worriers are scared of their own shadow and do live in a world of hate.

Let's go Caps!

 

[kicksavedave]

Capitals To Host Coaches Day March 13 at MedStar Capitals Iceplex


Caps to host "Coaches Day" for local youth hockey coaches.

Sneaky way to audition Todd's replacement. Savvy BMac is savvy.

 

[txpd]

Yea, all the coaches suck. this means that MacLellan is an idiot. hell this means that MacLellan and Ted are idiots for not extending Trotz well before the playoffs in 2018. Fire them all. Ok, we cant fire Ted, but we can not spend any more money on the team.

 

[txpd]

Demote Reirden back to being an ssistant(if he takes it)!

 

[txpd]

Oh on the PP keeping moving, quick touch passing and shoot the puck if there is a lane. Stop looking for the perfect play and have Oshie/Wilson create screens/look for rebounds in front of the goalie. No more force feeding the puck to OV!

oh...and there's this. Oshie and Wilson stand in the shooting lane now. Carlson and Ovechkin are the shooters. The PKs are taking those shots away from them. What movement are you looking for? Ov moves from the blue line to the goal post. Carlson moves on the blue line from RW to LW. Backstrom from the blue line to behind the net. Lastly, the idea is that Ovechkin can shoot the puck past the goalie clean. They dont want a screener and a defender standing there to get hit by his shot.

I am persuadable. What new pp system are you thinking of?

 

[caps4cup]

I don’t see too much structure in their game which is definitely a problem. Playing open and giving players freedom (especially offensively) is fine with the right group but it might not be for this group. Puck support on breakouts and in the neutral zone just isn’t there which I think is the reason for so many turnovers. Their neutral zone defense is also non existent right now as teams are skating and passing into the Capitals zone right now without any resistance. Even the TSN announcers were commenting on how awful the Caps neutral zone was against the Habs. Their forecheck has also been... not great which I don’t know if it’s a system thing or not. I’m not blaming TR for 92 and 13’s lack of effort in that regard. I think these are likely the main problems right now. They aren’t breaking the puck out cleanly or are turning it over, have no forecheck or sustained offensive zone time, and teams are skating into the Caps zone with tons of speed which puts the defensemen in a really tough spot. All this leads to a lot of time being spent in the defensive zone and in a man on man system, once you get stuck out there and the attacking team is buzzing around and can get fresh legs on the ice even, it’s not gonna look good.

 

[hb12xchamps]

At least the coaching bitch fest doesn’t have to clog up every thread now

 

[Ridley Simon]

At least the coaching bitch fest doesn’t have to clog up every thread now

THIS

 

[Langway]

 

[Kuznetsnow]

Just move Reirden back to assistant coach and replace him with the type of coach who has that chippy cup winning demeanor - Gallant, Carlyle, Laviolette, Sutter. Muh tactics is only half of why they're losing and Reirden is good for that as long as he doesn't have to lead.

They've been heavily underachieving with an utterly stacked roster long enough that they can justify canning Reirden, Gallant did much less to warrant being fired.

 

[Ridley Simon]

LOL. Good Lord people.

STOP suggesting they move Reirden back to an assistant. Unless GMBM comes down from on high and becomes HC, that simply will *never* happen. Like ever.

He will either get fired, or will coach out the season. Period end.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

I’m no alarmist, but I haven’t been this concerned about the team since probably pre-Cup.

 

[Ridley Simon]

I’m no alarmist, but I haven’t been this concerned about the team since probably pre-Cup.

We’ve seen some bad runs for the team over the past few years.

Tomorrow is massive. If they step up and look good and beat the Pens, then there we are.

I’d they look like dogshit again and lose at home? This is a playoff type game. First in Metro is up for grabs.

I’m honestly to the point where I don’t care. If GMBM thinks they need a change and cans “his guy”, then I support it.

the fact that there are 3 wildly successful coaches waiting to be hired — certainly impacts my thinking.

we will see

 

[Kuznetsnow]

Dillon Carlson
Orlov Gudas
Kempny Jensen
Siege Djoos

That should be the playoff lineup, with Dillon and Kempny interchangeable based on who fits up top better.

Reirden needs to stop his moronic off-side defenseman placement, it sunk us last year with the all time wtf Carlson-Jensen pairing. If you absolutely must do it, Orlov or Djoos (if it comes to that due to attrition) at RD since they've semi proven to be able to handle it without falling off a cliff.

In the meanwhile rest Kempny, Gudas and Jensen as much as they may need, towards the end of the season once they've clinched maybe rest Orlov if he needs it. Carlson is going for historic point numbers so gotta let him play out.

 

[SherVaughn30]

You take away OV's 700th and this team did the same exact wrong ways to play against the Devils. PP failed, still giving up odd man breaks and breakaways, Kuzy and Kempny take dumb penalties late in the game to cost the team(no discipline which is supposed to be implemented by the coach!). How much more can be tolerated? You can't fire the players...