Talk about Capitals hockey & more! > Washington Capitals & Other Hockey Discussion
GDT#59 Capitals @ Ducks 9:00pm Sun Feb 17, 2019 NBCSWA, ESPN+, PRIME
zerofox:
--- Quote from: apace41 on Sunday February 17, 2019, 11:55:55 PM Eastern ---
Anyone who is not concerned that this team is highly likely NOT to make the playoffs is fooling themselves. You have CBJ, NYI, PIT and CAR in our division that are all better than we are right now. Add in TBL, BOS, TOR and MTL and you can easily see this group of jokers on the outside looking in. We made no moves on the blue line at the trade deadline yet Orpik, Niskanen and Orlov all look horrid day in and day out. The coach is clearly out of his depth. Can't kill penalties once again. Suck at faceoffs and take way too many stupid penalties. I thought when they played a nice game and beat Calgary coming out of the break that they would go back to playing the hockey they played last spring. I was clearly wrong. They have gotten FANTASTIC goaltending from Holts since the break and they are still losing games at an alarming rate. If they don't turn it around on the rest of this road trip they will dig themselves a hole they will not be able to crawl out of. Ugly but true.
--- End quote ---
Yup, exactly my point when I posted this
--- Quote ---We're going to lose if we keep playing like this. Against a bottom feeding Ducks team too...
Honestly at this point let's just make a concerted effort to get Ovi his 50th and the Rocket. There's no chance this team makes the playoffs. PIT and MTL as the wild card teams are only 2 points behind, and the Caps can't get things going against the worst of the worst.
--- End quote ---
The Caps are playing like garbage. And I don't just say this because they've been losing a lot, because our losses are NOT a case of "we worked hard but bounces/calls/hockey gods didn't go our way." I say this because you can see it in their play. No one can make a fucking pass. There's absolutely no chemistry whatsoever. No one plays with any snarl or fight in their game. Our Powerplays fizzle out because we struggle to enter the zone and maintain zone time, and even when we do it's just an overpassing exhibition until someone makes a stupid pass to the other team. Our PK is all over the place. Game after game there's just no effort. There's no team defense. There's no physicality. There's no flow. Elite teams play with a chemistry and flow that makes it seem like the players are communicating telepathically sometimes. This team plays like a team of guys who are just happy to get millions a year. This team plays like a team that has one trophy in mind - one that says "2018-2019 NHL Season Participants."
Our terrible play has been masked at times by Ovechkin's heroics or Holtby's goaltending from time to time. Our record is 32-20-7 you say? Yeah, take away that 15 or so game streak where Ovechkin was on fire and tell me that we're still above .500 win percentage. I still believe that we are better off feeding Ovechkin every single chance we get. Not just because I personally want him to get 50+ and win another Rocket, but also because I firmly believe he's the only one who can get us on the board. That late game rush where Eller just shot it instead of trying to pass to Ovechkin? That was a mistake, and Eller made the lower percentage play there. With Oshie out, only Ovechkin and to a lesser extent Vrana can get us on the board.
CBJ, PIT, MTL are 2 points behind us, and CBJ has 2 games on hand. CAR has been hot (8-2-0) and sits 3 points behind us. This team WILL NOT make the playoffs by playing this way. A bullshit "player's only meeting" and a week long vacation didn't do shit to help our cause. TR is driving this team into the ground so hard that if he isn't fired tomorrow I'm afraid we will have drilled a hole to China by the end of the season.
Meanwhile, soft useless Burakovsky is still on our payroll somehow. He's one of the few players who can go for a body check, land the body check, but ends up being the one who falls ass first on the ice. If you think Bura is worth $3 million a year, then I'd like to sell you some bottled air.
We took a championship team, removed a 4th liner and a backup goalie, and ended up with a non-playoff bound team somehow. Trotz wasn't perfect, and there were times last year where it felt like he lost the team, but his 3 dominant seasons before that gave him benefit of the doubt. TR is well past the first 30 games of the season, which is a period of time where I'll give a free pass to a new coach to get his players and system up and running. I don't care as much that Trotz left, but I care more that we picked the wrong fucking guy to be coach. This guy couldn't even coach fucking Boys and Girls Club roller hockey for fuck's sake...
zerofox:
--- Quote from: alta on Sunday February 17, 2019, 11:55:22 PM Eastern ---
wow, Maaco reincarnate, where did I say that ??
--- End quote ---
Sorry, just fucking pissed.
alta:
--- Quote from: zerofox on Monday February 18, 2019, 12:23:57 AM Eastern ---
Sorry, just fucking pissed.
--- End quote ---
yep, it is annoying watching this team.
My point about the refs, at the time of the bullshit call against Willy it was a tie game and very much a contest, even as badly as the Caps were playing. The refs changed momentum with a very bad call. Refs usually try to even the score when they recognize they've blown it. Instead the Caps got called for three more penalties. At least one of which was another bad call. Caps couldn't recover any momentum because they were playing like shit while on the PK for 6 minutes. Even when playing poorly this team has proved they can beat one opponent, but not two.
PUCKNRUSH:
Hey Folks.
My disappointment with this team, and what’s been observed for damn near two months of Caps hockey, makes for extreme frustration!
It almost rises to an obsession, when trying to figure out the “whys”, and causes, of what I sadly observe, overall, with our play!
I want there to be reasons to have hope, that we can see coming just around the corner!
I’m looking for deeper and more meaningful reasons, as the frustration continually grows!
Ya know what!! Tonites postgame interviews helped me partially understand, that it may not be so hard to figure out!! The answer may be painfully right under our noses! Here’s why:
It’s a simple and basic thing! And I haven’t been looking for it either!
Carlson, who is as vanilla, and mundane, as it ever gets in a post game interview, actually said something unique, and different, than his typical safe, and bland responses!
He said, when asked about the inconsistency in play, (San Jose game versus Ducks game), “We have to hold each other accountable, to continue to play at that level,(San Jose game), not just to come
out and play WHEN WE FEEL LIKE IT”!!!! (referring to the Ducks game)!
WHEN WE FEEL LIKE IT!!..............💥B O O M💥!!!!
VOILA!! There you have it in a nutshell!! Think about it. Carlson has a rep for being well-liked on the team! I don’t care for the guy, but he does seem to have a good rapport with the guys!
This means that the locker room has an issue with guys giving half ass efforts, OFTEN!!
I know we’ve all agreed, as fans, that it often DOES appear that way! We’ve suspected it a lot!
The thing is, we also throw out a lot of other problems to mix into this ball of confusion!!
I, for one, simply don’t want to believe it WHOLEHEARTEDLY! My brain has trouble with allowing myself to believe, that our Stanley Cup winning boys, may oftentimes not give as much of a FUCK, when they’re out there!!....Ok maybe not EVERY player, but most of them have been guilty of this very thing that Carlson has confirmed!!
I truly believe that this scenario really MAKES SENSE! It’s the best reason we have that provides ANSWERS, and helps to make sense of this random-ass, crap play, ever since at least Christmas!!
It EXPLAINS A LOT!!! Things aren’t so murky to have to understand, when you put “not giving a shit”, as a backdrop to some of these baffling losses!
Are there other issues? Of course! But many of our current blunders can be either directly, or indirectly, associated with this problem!!
All hope is not lost, however! (I say this sincerely).
If our problems are due, in a large part, to players often “playing hard only when they feel
like it”, then the solution is KNOWN easily, as to what they must do!
The difficulty is in knowing whether they WILL, or NOT!!
Brooks Orpik said it best when asked about this phenomenon! He carefully didn’t offer optimism, OR pessimism, in his reply! He simply said, “We will get what we deserve”!!
As far as I’m concerned, as a Caps fan...... I just found a great frickin’ ANSWER!!!
Rush
justwincaps:
The game was what the game was. It's the SSDD we've seen for years now - amazing one night and crapping the bed the next. Playing up to the level of the best teams and down to the level of the worst.
What frosts me most of all is that in reading these posts there more passion in the 8-10 regular posters than any of the players I saw in the post game interview.
Look, I know they care. It's their career, it's their passion, etc, etc but I didn't see a single one of them the least bit pissed about that effort. We've given up 11 goals in two games to one of the worst offensive teams in the NHL this year. Dumb pinches, missed assignments, brainless penalties.
Saw the dumbass Rierden in his post game conference say that "we had players who didn't get it done so we'll see different players tomorrow night". Great, show us your coaching prowess and please bench Jaskin, please bench the rest of your 4th line as if they are the only ones responsible for this disaster.
The team that played Columbus and the one that played last night misses the playoffs. The team that beat SJ on the road can win the Cup. Anyone want to venture a guess as to which one we see against LAK? I don't know. You don't know. And, most frighteningly, Rierden doesn't know either.
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