Ok first the Forsberg crap - Dean Evason is someone Forsberg cites as helping him a lot in his development with learning how to play a more complete game, if Trotz keeps him up, maybe Forsberg figures it out, maybe he doesn't and ends up taking longer to get to where he is right now, but the guy is where he is right now because Trotz recognized he was still way too raw. People want to give him crap for that?
Tell me Caps fans, how was Nate Schmidt not played because Trotz hates young players? How about Burakovsky having a bit of a breakthrough in the playoffs? Why does Laviolette get the credit for Forsberg, but Trotz gets none for helping Kuznetsov, a young player at the time?
And AHL teams success isn't always because of prospects, those teams are also trying to win a championship of their own, they are loaded with AHL vets sprinkled in with young talent to be a part of a winning team. Vrana and others got a shot with the Caps, they weren't ready. What is Trotz supposed to do? Play people that aren't ready? I may not think Trotz is a great coach, but he is a good one and he didn't seem to have that bias towards young players like people like to think.
Also, what's holding the Capitals back? They lack identity. They always have. That's been their issue for a very very long time and they have never corrected it. They need to forge an identity. Every team has one, but the Caps are just a team that does well and then flutters in the playoffs, but their identity isn't that of the highest scoring team or the best defensive team, they're pretty good at both, but I mean...there's zero identity there. You never hear analysts mention that because there isn't one.
