Post-Game Talk: The fault in the Stars 7:30PM

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BiPolar Caps

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Feb 9, 2010
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Imagine that, a team loses at home to a team it should beat. Blues defeat the Wild 2-1 in Minneapolis. #### happens!
 

twabby

Registered User
Mar 9, 2010
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The 700 wins track record? "if he's coasting, motivate him". Is that with a light switch? So simple right? LOL....Same with "they allowed the team to coast". So simple from your KB right? There's no changing the chemistry of the team at this point. I think this again comes back to you wanting him with 92, but you don't want to be accused of spamming it again. ;)

Superstar egos are not always so easily manipulated as the list of former NHL coaches will show you. I think more of this is on the player to carry his weight and stop playing poorly. We've seen signs of life recently and it all seems like a simple uptick in effort. Both encouraging and disheartening given we'd all like a more consistent work ethic right? The coach blame is a little convenient sometimes for my tastes.

700 wins is impressive and like I said for the most part Trotz pushes the right buttons. But he also has a track record of playoff disappointments even when he had some very talented teams in Nashville right after the 2004-05 lockout, so it's fair to question whether he's able to get as much as possible out of his players come crunch time. I'm not absolving Ovechkin of blame because I agree the effort level hasn't appeared to be there this season, but again the problems with the 8-19-77 line have been there since the beginning of last season (where Ovechkin DID appear to be engaged for most of the regular season).

IMO it's foolish to blame the line's poor possession numbers on Ovechkin's effort level alone without looking at underlying chemistry issues. Ovechkin and Backstrom have both benefitted from being away from each other in recent years. And even if motivation is the only problem, one way to motivate a player to be more engaged is to give him different linemates and different looks. Wilson appeared to help make Ovechkin more engaged physically so I'd be open to putting Wilson back on the first line as another alternative. I'm just not happy with the current configuration and I'm hardly the only one calling for a change, whether it's several posters here or pretty much the entire Capitals blogging community. It's way overdue.
 

RandyHolt

Keep truckin'
Nov 3, 2006
34,639
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This season is starting to resemble last years....

Barry likes to first set pairs as foundations for setting lines. I understand why he does this, because without a base configuration, he is looking at 10000 different lineups.

That all said, there are logical shakeups that don't require 10000 different games to find lineups that work. I have said it was a mistake to not shake up the top 6 last spring, and I see similar issues starting to mirror last year.

Peaking too early. Snow/Byeweekgeddon. A scoring Line not working at ES. Lackluster effort level. Early goal against. Ugly wins. The switch is set off.

It's more than winning 2-1 games vs a cellar dweller, which hey we won!!!1! ironically causes complacency. It's about fine tuning for the playoffs, and less about staying the course. It wise to learn from ones mistakes.
 

Valhuen

Secretary of Defense
Apr 10, 2011
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Well, we can safely say winning the Metro is no longer a given. We now only have a 5-point lead with probably our toughest 5 game stretch of the season coming up. If we don't make it over .500 during that time there's a very good chance we find ourselves in the middle of the 4-team metro dogfight.

Really want the President's Trophy (or at least 1st in the Metro) this year, would make our path a bit easier.
 

HecticGlow

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Mar 14, 2016
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Barry likes to first set pairs as foundations for setting lines.

I think it's more about identifying which aspects of a line are working and which need tweaking. For example, this year Ovi hasn't obviously been 'paired' with anyone - he's been tried multiple times with both Backstrom and Kuzy, and his wingers have included Mojo, Oshie, Williams, Bura, Connolly, Wilson...

On the other hand, Mojo-Backstrom was one of the most consistent pairings for quite a while, and since he switched Mojo and Ovi the second line has been pretty consistent with Williams.
 

txpd

Registered User
Jan 25, 2003
69,649
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New Bern, NC
I think it's more about identifying which aspects of a line are working and which need tweaking. For example, this year Ovi hasn't obviously been 'paired' with anyone - he's been tried multiple times with both Backstrom and Kuzy, and his wingers have included Mojo, Oshie, Williams, Bura, Connolly, Wilson...

On the other hand, Mojo-Backstrom was one of the most consistent pairings for quite a while, and since he switched Mojo and Ovi the second line has been pretty consistent with Williams.

I would disagree. Trotz would identify 8-19 as one of his pairs. It doesn't mean that he wouldn't split them up but his base foundation is 8-19, 92-90, 20-65, 83-43. He may move one of those but always returns to those.
 
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