CapitalsCupReality
It’s Go Time!!
- Feb 27, 2002
- 64,673
- 19,513
No true Caps fan hates Ovechkin. No true Caps fan would ever want him to request a trade. Fans who came on board when he was drafted and who will bail after he's gone, sure.
Post-Game Talk: Washington Capitals vs Le Club de hockey Canadien de Montréal @7PM
- Thread starter Alexander the Gr8
- Start date
- Status
CapitalsCupReality
It’s Go Time!!
- Feb 27, 2002
- 64,673
- 19,513
Alexander the Gr8
Registered User
It's not because I criticized Ovechkin that I don't like him. Quite the opposite actually, I just want him to be at his best.
For sure, I'm going again tomorrow, hoping to meet the other players. They had to leave by bus because they were going to a children's hospital.
CapitalsCupReality
It’s Go Time!!
- Feb 27, 2002
- 64,673
- 19,513
SpinningEdge
Registered User
We've had past players call out players - but never Ovi.
Ovi doesn't really need to be vocal. That's why Orpik got paid so much money... why Laich got paid so much money... etc.
Caps aren't a young team. This group has been together for awhile - especially the core. They know what they need to do at this point and what the goal is.
Ovi doesn't really need to be vocal. That's why Orpik got paid so much money... why Laich got paid so much money... etc.
Caps aren't a young team. This group has been together for awhile - especially the core. They know what they need to do at this point and what the goal is.
CapitalsCupReality
It’s Go Time!!
- Feb 27, 2002
- 64,673
- 19,513
Pretty sure there have been rumors of players on the roster calling him to the mat behind the scenes, then the mysterious comments from Laich after his trade, refusing to say much, alluding to the fact that's it's not a good idea to dish on the Captain. I wouldn't expect much to get disclosed until he's out of the league honestly, if there's anything worthwhile to dish on at all.
g00n
Retired Global Mod
- Nov 22, 2007
- 30,625
- 14,712
That Laich story is hearsay from a member on this board and not really confirmed beyond that.
CapitalsCupReality
It’s Go Time!!
- Feb 27, 2002
- 64,673
- 19,513
i think I'm blending two stories I remember the line about dishing on the Captain from what you're referring to.
Alexander the Gr8
Registered User
Day 2 at Kettler
Team overview: The focus of today's practice was odd-man situation and special units. The team practiced 2vs1, 2vs2, 3vs2 and the PP/PK. For the 2vs1, the forwards almost never scored because they were overpassing. Kuzy in particular was guilty of overpassing on many plays. Those who scored (Eller, Connolly and Ovi) looked for a pass and surprised the goalies with a shot at the last second. Each of the odd-man situations started by using a D partner in transition. Our transition in practice is nearly seamless, it's definitely one of our strengths now, we're not just putting the puck off the boards hoping someone on our team picks it up.
Special units:
Regarding the special units, the PP unit was able to enter the zone almost all the time by having Niskanen/Orlov drop the puck back to Backstrom/Kuznetsov who had many different options by attacking the blue line with speed. Backstrom prefers to dish it out on the side, Kuznetsov uses the end boards to play it to himself and he gets it back to the point after going behind the net. Vrana and Burt are going to get some ice time on the PP, Burt was in a red jersey on the second PP unit. Now that might be because they had to include one more player in Carlson's absence.
Overall the PK did a great job, limiting the PP units to one goal on many attempts. The goal was scored by Johansson who tipped in a Niskanen wrist shot from the point (sounds familiar?). Ovechkin was straight up garbage on the PP, he missed two perfect opportunities with a wide open net and he slammed his stick in anger right at my face.
The team then practiced face-offs. It was a top 6 vs bottom 6 vs defensemen tournament. The bottom 6 won the majority of the face-offs thanks to Beagle. Kuznetsov was winning a lot of face-offs for the top 6, while Backstrom and Eller were losing the majority of their draws. Surprisingly, the D is also capable of winning face-offs. Schmidt and Orpik won a few, and promptly celebrated each face-off win.
To finish the practice, they did a little team shootout, with the top 6 guys shooting on Holts. Oshie, Kuznetsov and Backstrom had 0 goals. Oshie lost the puck (and Holtby celebrated lol). Ovi, Wilson and Nisky scored one each. Williams cheated and went to score a goal even after losing the puck on the boards, which sparked a huge argument between the two teams.
The players then left the ice, except for Wilson, Beagle, Connolly, Sanford, Schmidt, Orlov and Chorney. The forwards were playing around with a little kid, while the D was working on one timers. Orlov was the last one to leave the ice, he practiced rapid fire one-timers until he was too exhausted to even lift his stick.
Now, as promised yesterday, I'll analyze what I saw from each of the players I didn't cover already.
John Carlson: Only saw him yesterday. He's doing everything right, except hitting the net. I was behind the net when the D were practicing walking the blue line to take a slap shot at the end of practice. Carlson was aiming over my head all the time, and I'm 6' tall. I think he had more shots off the glass than in the net. Seriously he needs to ditch the slap shot and take wrist shots only.
Karl Alzner: All around solid, but his shot is a muffin. He's been working on it the past two days, but he doesn't have what it takes to produce offensively on a consistent basis. He never gets caught out of position, which is awesome.
Matt Niskanen: Our best defenseman. He's as good as Carlson in any area of the game, and he can hit the damn net. He was taking one timers from an almost impossible angle and he was able to get it a few times in the top corner.
Brooks Orpik: He looks exactly like Alzner in practice. He does not get out of position to throw hits in practice, and it helps him a lot. He's the best on the team at clearing the crease, and the goalies seem to appreciate it a lot. I don't think he should go for the fancy hip check during games, because the opposing forwards are almost always very skilled and will simply deke around him. Like Alzner, his shot is a muffin.
Nate Schmidt: Of the 6 full-time Ds, he's the weakest all-around and he receives the most attention of the training staff. He's trying to be a skilled puck moving D ala Gostisbehere, but that's just not his game. He should stick to skating fast in a straight line when he finds a lane to move the puck up quickly. He has very little to no ability to move the puck laterally. He's been working on his shot quite a bit, and he's making progress.
Dmitry Orlov: In practice, he looks flawless. No pizzas, moves the puck up efficiently, his shot from the point gets to the net most of the time and defensively he's been breaking up odd-man rushes with ease. If he can play like that in games, we better keep him. We just have to be a little bit patient and hope for him to breakout. Unfortunately, it looks like we're going to lose a very good D at the expansion draft no matter what happens.
Taylor Chorney: Clearly the lesser of the 7 Ds. His offensive skill is on par with Orpik's or Alzner's, while his defensive play is on par with Schmidt. He's just a warm body.
Zach Sanford: Tall, lanky dude who can handle the grind of the game at the NHL level. Lacks the creativity and the experience to produce right now, so I'd expect him to go scoreless until he's re-assigned to Hershey. Should be sent down again IMO.
Brett Connolly: Good replacement forward, has size and underrated puck skills. Doesn't have the hockey IQ to be a top 6 winger, but he's just fine in a bottom 6 role.
Daniel Winnik: See Brett Connolly, but left handed.
OT: Today I got Trotz and Holtby's autograph. Got to take a picture with them + Beagle. All 3 were very friendly to me and the other fans in general. I wish I'd had other autographs, but the other players looked like they didn't want to be bothered.
Team overview: The focus of today's practice was odd-man situation and special units. The team practiced 2vs1, 2vs2, 3vs2 and the PP/PK. For the 2vs1, the forwards almost never scored because they were overpassing. Kuzy in particular was guilty of overpassing on many plays. Those who scored (Eller, Connolly and Ovi) looked for a pass and surprised the goalies with a shot at the last second. Each of the odd-man situations started by using a D partner in transition. Our transition in practice is nearly seamless, it's definitely one of our strengths now, we're not just putting the puck off the boards hoping someone on our team picks it up.
Special units:
Regarding the special units, the PP unit was able to enter the zone almost all the time by having Niskanen/Orlov drop the puck back to Backstrom/Kuznetsov who had many different options by attacking the blue line with speed. Backstrom prefers to dish it out on the side, Kuznetsov uses the end boards to play it to himself and he gets it back to the point after going behind the net. Vrana and Burt are going to get some ice time on the PP, Burt was in a red jersey on the second PP unit. Now that might be because they had to include one more player in Carlson's absence.
Overall the PK did a great job, limiting the PP units to one goal on many attempts. The goal was scored by Johansson who tipped in a Niskanen wrist shot from the point (sounds familiar?). Ovechkin was straight up garbage on the PP, he missed two perfect opportunities with a wide open net and he slammed his stick in anger right at my face.
The team then practiced face-offs. It was a top 6 vs bottom 6 vs defensemen tournament. The bottom 6 won the majority of the face-offs thanks to Beagle. Kuznetsov was winning a lot of face-offs for the top 6, while Backstrom and Eller were losing the majority of their draws. Surprisingly, the D is also capable of winning face-offs. Schmidt and Orpik won a few, and promptly celebrated each face-off win.
To finish the practice, they did a little team shootout, with the top 6 guys shooting on Holts. Oshie, Kuznetsov and Backstrom had 0 goals. Oshie lost the puck (and Holtby celebrated lol). Ovi, Wilson and Nisky scored one each. Williams cheated and went to score a goal even after losing the puck on the boards, which sparked a huge argument between the two teams.
The players then left the ice, except for Wilson, Beagle, Connolly, Sanford, Schmidt, Orlov and Chorney. The forwards were playing around with a little kid, while the D was working on one timers. Orlov was the last one to leave the ice, he practiced rapid fire one-timers until he was too exhausted to even lift his stick.
Now, as promised yesterday, I'll analyze what I saw from each of the players I didn't cover already.
John Carlson: Only saw him yesterday. He's doing everything right, except hitting the net. I was behind the net when the D were practicing walking the blue line to take a slap shot at the end of practice. Carlson was aiming over my head all the time, and I'm 6' tall. I think he had more shots off the glass than in the net. Seriously he needs to ditch the slap shot and take wrist shots only.
Karl Alzner: All around solid, but his shot is a muffin. He's been working on it the past two days, but he doesn't have what it takes to produce offensively on a consistent basis. He never gets caught out of position, which is awesome.
Matt Niskanen: Our best defenseman. He's as good as Carlson in any area of the game, and he can hit the damn net. He was taking one timers from an almost impossible angle and he was able to get it a few times in the top corner.
Brooks Orpik: He looks exactly like Alzner in practice. He does not get out of position to throw hits in practice, and it helps him a lot. He's the best on the team at clearing the crease, and the goalies seem to appreciate it a lot. I don't think he should go for the fancy hip check during games, because the opposing forwards are almost always very skilled and will simply deke around him. Like Alzner, his shot is a muffin.
Nate Schmidt: Of the 6 full-time Ds, he's the weakest all-around and he receives the most attention of the training staff. He's trying to be a skilled puck moving D ala Gostisbehere, but that's just not his game. He should stick to skating fast in a straight line when he finds a lane to move the puck up quickly. He has very little to no ability to move the puck laterally. He's been working on his shot quite a bit, and he's making progress.
Dmitry Orlov: In practice, he looks flawless. No pizzas, moves the puck up efficiently, his shot from the point gets to the net most of the time and defensively he's been breaking up odd-man rushes with ease. If he can play like that in games, we better keep him. We just have to be a little bit patient and hope for him to breakout. Unfortunately, it looks like we're going to lose a very good D at the expansion draft no matter what happens.
Taylor Chorney: Clearly the lesser of the 7 Ds. His offensive skill is on par with Orpik's or Alzner's, while his defensive play is on par with Schmidt. He's just a warm body.
Zach Sanford: Tall, lanky dude who can handle the grind of the game at the NHL level. Lacks the creativity and the experience to produce right now, so I'd expect him to go scoreless until he's re-assigned to Hershey. Should be sent down again IMO.
Brett Connolly: Good replacement forward, has size and underrated puck skills. Doesn't have the hockey IQ to be a top 6 winger, but he's just fine in a bottom 6 role.
Daniel Winnik: See Brett Connolly, but left handed.
OT: Today I got Trotz and Holtby's autograph. Got to take a picture with them + Beagle. All 3 were very friendly to me and the other fans in general. I wish I'd had other autographs, but the other players looked like they didn't want to be bothered.
Alexander the Gr8
Registered User
I don't think he needs a stiffer flex. Usually defensemen use stiffer sticks because it gives them a harder slap shot. Hockey sticks do come in high and low kick points. A higher kick point gives you a harder slap shot, while a lower kick point allows you to have a faster and more accurate release on wrist shots. Typically, defensemen use mid-high kick point sticks while forwards tend to prefer low to mid kick points (of course there are exceptions).
To my knowledge, Carlson's stick has the specs of a typical Dman's stick, except for one thing. I believe that like Niskanen last year, he changed his stick curve. He changed his curve to something more aggressive, a deep toe curve with a round toe like the one used by the elite offensive Ds in this league (Karlsson, Subban, Letang etc.).
In this picture from 2015, Niskanen was using the traditional heel curve with a square toe, used by players like Lidstrom to help them dig the puck along the boards and get low slap shots on net. Then, last year, he changed to this:
See the difference? I believe Carlson is making a similar transition and this is what's affecting his accuracy IMO. He's just getting used to this new curve.
I make fun of Adam Oates for being a nerd when it comes to hockey sticks, but I'm just like him
Alexander the Gr8
Registered User
I feel like I learned a lot about the team by spending two days at Kettler. You can get a feel for all the players' true worth when they're just 3 feet away from you at practice.
My take for this year's team is that they will once again finish near the top of the standings, perhaps win the PT again. As for the playoffs, it's a coin toss. You need a lot of luck, hard to tell what they'll do. Advancing past the 2nd round isn't out of the question, especially if our top players can all get going as we approach the playoffs.
txpd
Registered User
Funny, you know. Winnik and Connolly with all the games lost to scratching have 7 goals between them. Let them both play and they are both sitting at 5. Its easy to see that Trotz and MacLellan are letting Sanford and now Vrana play and sitting Winnik and Connolly because they know what they have.
Autographs. You may find in the end getting to chat with a player or coach for a few minutes turns out top be a better memory in the long run. From my work in the music business I have mass amounts of autographs and none of that has much value anymore. Loretta Lynn sent me a letter many years ago which I cherish but its not an autograph. I am really curious what Beagle is like. He looks huge. Like tv doesn't do his size justice.
Addition...I am always impressed by the players that tap the hands of the fans leaning over coming and going off the ice. Awareness of the customers always impresses
Alexander the Gr8
Registered User
Yep, Trotz and MacLellan are allowing the kids to develop their talents with the big teams. They know Winnik and Connolly can fill in at any time in the bottom 6, but we have no replacement in case a top 6 forward gets injured. With Vrana and Sanford in the mix, we know that at least Vrana and Burakovsky are ready to play in a top 6 role and be productive. This wasn't the case last year when we had Galiev fill in or Wilson moved up the lineup.
Autographs have a sentimental value, they're a tangible memory of what my 20th birthday was like. Getting to talk to them is even better indeed. I've mostly had the time to chat with Trotz. I told him briefly my story, to which he answered: "Wow, you traveled a long way buddy! We'll try to win tomorrow for you."
After the frustration of missing the game on Saturday, these words really cheered me up. On the picture I have with him, he was grinning from ear to ear. This guy breathes happiness and is very charismatic. I thanked him and I wished the best for him and his family.
I've been pretty hard on the guy the past few months here, but after meeting him, I have a hard time criticising him. I've seen all the work he does to prepare for games, and I believe he is doing his best. I don't want him to go anymore. This man Barry Trotz will be in the hockey hall of fame, and I'll be able to tell my kids that I once met one of the best coaches in hockey history. He deserves everything he's got, and he deserves to win.
I'm going back home tonight, but I'll come back to DC for the playoffs, that's for sure.
bur and 666 others
Registered User
- Jun 13, 2012
- 1,962
- 795
Great writeup, thanks
I feel like I've gotten to know the team little bit better too after your posts. Yeah, about overpassing. Fans and players of oppositions always say that we tend to do extra pass. It seems the theme this year. I thought it was Kuznetsov's specialty only, but after reading other fans boards and listening other teams players, it seems it's the identity of this current team. I like passing, but honestly Kuznetsov is driving me crazy with his extra passes.
bur and 666 others
Registered User
- Jun 13, 2012
- 1,962
- 795
It's sad if true, but I remember his rookie year and even last year. He was our best possession guy, he was even considered to be our second C. I think his problem is he's young and listens what the coaches tell him to do. if he like Kuznetsov decided to stick on C despite the coaches' decision, he could've developed better.
Alexander the Gr8
Registered User
He's got more to give, but it's up to the coaching staff to find a way for him to develop his game. If the 90-19-77 line wasn't working so well, I think going back to the Tre Kronor combination would do him a lot of good. But then that would force Vrana down, which isn't fair to him.
I'm not a pro scout guys, just a fan like all of you. Take what I say FWIW
Last edited:
txpd
Registered User
There is a reason why Trotz lasted so long in Nashville and got a better job right away. I think that reason is pretty hard to see in the scope of hockey and post games and pressers. He has to be motivational while still getting a long with almost everybody. You probably saw that reason when you got to talk to him more than all the rest of us. I am glad you had that moment.
Alexander the Gr8
Registered User
We're not accusing players/coaches of being bad people but we fail to give credit to a coach who manages to get the most of his players by establishing a strong relationship. It's so easy for us to look at the standings and the underlying numbers of the team to say "Hurr durr, fire BT!". I know I'm guilty of it. Until BT got here, coaching has almost always been a circus in the Ovechkin era.
txpd
Registered User
Not really. We are talking about unusual longevity. Some coaches never last because their style and personality burn them out so quickly on a group. Management style. In the case of Trotz, I am not talking about being a nice guy. I am talking about a management style that gets the best out of his group of staff and players and who is able to convince those above him in the chain that all is well.
I understand Ken Hitchcock to be a very nice man. He is also abrasive as a coach and a manager and doesn't last.
Trotz hockey moves have served him well so far. The Capitals have improved in each of season til this season, which remains an unknown quantity. Put a Cup on his resume and he probably is a hall of fame coach.
- Status
