Good teams are all about skill, heart, and most of all chemistry. Finding that perfect balance up and down your line combinations requires good coaching staff that know the game.
We are witnessing a coalescing of the above again with the Capitals. It's not perfect, but it never is going to be.
We ALL have known for years that this team had the skill. We ALL knew that this team was capable of pulling out the heart virtually anytime they felt like it, which I must say is immensely frustrating. This team last year put all of the above together at the right time to win the cup. Then after playing two months longer than most teams they went on an epic binger for three months.
This year started with pretty much a continuation of the cup run. Then they started to fall flat on all the above. The break came to the rescue, which doesn't seem like much since it's only ten days, but it is clear this team benefited.
We picked up two GREAT additions by GMBM which allowed the balance on the lines to finally be found. Suddenly both scoring and defensive play goes up considerably while mistakes for the most part decline.
There is no denying that the trajectory of this team is heading upward fast. Defensive mistakes are being limited and we can sometimes not tell which is our top line because the contributions are coming from everyone. Hell, even Burky is playing well and both Dima and Dylan are hitting opponents like freight trains lately. We've shut down some potent offenses at times, and except for a few brain farts we do have a formidable defensive structure with great communications.
And finally, this is not unlike last year where we had scary lull in January, pulled it back together and peaked at the right time. Then in the post season we played like a team possessed. I've been watching and comparing every single game as I create the GDT's. Our record this year has been following last year almost exactly at every point in the season. After game 71 here are the stats for the last three seasons.
2019 91-42-22-7 2018 89-41-23-7 2017 83-36-25-11
Last year I was VERY confident after the All-Star break and that confidence grew to the end. Last year we were just a bit tighter on defense at this point, but I see no reason we can't tighten up a bit more and repeat since that part of game is seeing vast improvement of late.
We've all seen this team rise to the challenge (and lower to the challenge
at times). Holts is still a beast and we are still a monster of a team on paper.
"Back to Back"? Quite possibly. The next three games (two against the Bolts) will tell us a whole lot about our chances of getting to the Championship series. If we get through Tampa then I say we are the champs again.
AJ
