There is a reason that Florida hadnt won a game before this. They have some talented players but they have to clean up the sloppy play.
And the Caps are playing the same way. Our personnel hasn't changed much but we do look different. This is more than just individual mistakes. When we are hemmed in our zone everyone is scrambling around. There is no structure. It doesnt even look like we are following any system. There have been some bad individual mistakes. We had some turnovers in our end. It seemed when we turnover the puck it ended up in our net all the time. Our forwards are all leaving the zone too early because we are thinking offense first. On the penalty that Niskanen took late in the 3rd period. The forwards all left the zone and even Orlov was leaving the zone when Niskanen passed it to him. It wasnt a tape to tape pass and it bounced away from Orlov resulting in a turnover. Niskanen who was alone in the defensive zone got caught flat footed and was forced to take a penalty. Plays like this are happening too often because we are thinking offense first. If it only happened when certain players were on the ice I would guess that it was on those players but it happens with all 4 lines. This is a coaching issue.
After the first intermission Alan May commented about the Caps forwards all leaving the zone early and we were relying on the stress pass and the Panthers were sitting in the neutral zone waiting to intercept those passes.
DC is correct. We are playing video game hockey. It looks like Reirden stole his system from EAsports.
I think you nailed it with this post, Maaco!
The scrambling around, when defending our zone, is embarrassing to watch. This has been habitual and common to see, for the last several seasons. We have grown to rely on our ability to PREVENT both red or blue line crossing, OR to disrupt early entrance into our zone, by our opponent, by keeping pucks to the outside. Unfortunately, it’s essentially all we’ve got defensively, and we live and die by it!
The problem is that once an opponent gets the, (relatively speaking here), “rare” opportunity to set up in our zone, hemming us in, and cycling around, WE ARE SCREWED!!! Confusion starts, and we appear BAFFLED, and clueless as to how to defend at this point. It is my belief that this is when we are most vulnerable, and all the other teams know it.
I would love to see a statistic showing our opponents shooting percentage, once they’ve had control of the puck in our zone, for longer than, say, 12 seconds or so!! I’ll bet we have one of the highest G/SOG AGAINST percentages, in the league, using that qualifier!!
On the contrary, the only time you didn’t see us have this problem, was during our last two
rounds of the playoffs with Tampa, and Vegas.
Our 1-3-1 defensive setup at the red line, worked extremely well, because, for reasons still not really known, we “came together” collectively, as a team, hustling and staying in our role. When a team does that in a 1-3-1, it’s D is damn near impenetrable!!! Let’s remember also, that we were playing teams with excellent puck control.
The other difference during the playoffs, IMO, was when a team did get through, our forwards would close the gap, defensively speaking, by hustling and playing more individually responsible, making it seem like we were immediately in their face, when they received a pass, causing disruption to the opponents setup ability!!
We saw some slight carryover of this in our wins against Boston and Las Vegas. Both of these wins were dominating wins! NOW, unfortunately, I think we are beginning to see a return back to an all too common style of early, regular season, Caps hockey. The signature stuff like, getting lazy/cockey, after a big win, which leads to the D breakdowns mentioned above.
Add in some cockey forwards, leaving the zone early, and you’ve got a real mess on your hands, as the caps might have now!
Coaching is always at the root of this stuff, so I’m willing to give Rierden some time. I feel like the Caps can turn it on whenever they feel like it. They still have that much talent on the roster!! The question, like it has always been for the past few years, is which Caps team will show up on any given night? If Rierden can tap into that issue , and improve it, then I don’t think we have much to worry about.
Last words......Bura is now officially in the “Where’s Waldo” category! “F” him!!!
Rush
