Desperate times call for Ovechkin on the third line
Mixed messages are coming out of D.C. as Trotz shuffles the lineup ahead of Game 5
It’s not a good time to send a message. We (are) here to do whatever it takes to get the win and move forward.
ARLINGTON, VA. Before what could be the Washington Capitals’ final practice of the season, Alex Ovechkin stepped onto the ice with a new wardrobe. Typically a white jersey is reserved for the team’s bottom six forwards, but with the team one loss from another secondround playoff elimination, there was Ovechkin skating in a white sweater, signalling a significant demotion for the team captain.
“We all know we’re not doing as good as we want, so we kind of expected some changes to be made,” forward T.J. Oshie said. “We didn’t know what they were going to be.”
Ovechkin was moved off Washington’s first line with centre Nicklas Backstrom and Oshie and instead practised with third-line centre Lars Eller and right-winger Tom Wilson. It’s unclear if coach Barry Trotz plans to actually play Ovechkin in a bottom-six role in Game 5 against the Pittsburgh Penguins Saturday, but that it’s a consideration for the Capitals is a telling sign of their precarious position.
As the league’s best regular-season team for a second straight year, one of Washington’s strengths came from being a four-line team with a balanced attack. Trotz acknowledged the team “deviated” from that in its first-round series against Toronto and never reclaimed that identity against Pittsburgh. Instead, the Capitals have turned to a configuration of 11 forwards and seven defencemen, something they hadn’t done all season, and production from the third and fourth lines has vanished in this Eastern Conference semifinal series. Just three forwards — Ovechkin, Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov — have scored against Pittsburgh through four games.
Though the Capitals have outshot the Penguins 142-93, it hasn’t translated into enough goals and now they’ve run out of time. Washington has leaned on the chemistry of stable forward lines for more than four months, but going into Saturday’s elimination game, the Capitals hope a new look will spark their offence. With the margin for error nonexistent, it could work or it could be the final failed experiment that ends Washington’s season short of its Stanley Cup goal.
“I think it’s just to a situation where you want to switch up the lines and get better, I hope,” Ovechkin said. “And I hope it’s going to work.”
After Washington’s 3-2 loss to Pittsburgh Wednesday, Ovechkin was critical of his own performance and Trotz seemed to echo that when he said his top players needed to perform better. Ovechkin has one goal and three assists in the past four games with a minus-2 rating. But Trotz said moving Ovechkin to a third line in Friday’s practice wasn’t in response to his poor play in Game 4. He suggested that with a lineup of 11 forwards, Ovechkin could be double-shifted, so he wanted him to spend some time practising with Eller and Wilson.
That seemed to go against Ovechkin’s understanding of the change; he said it was intended to spread the scoring threats and create a trickier matchup for the Penguins. Pittsburgh had a similar strategy last season by playing Phil Kessel on its third line. Asked if the new line combinations were Trotz trying to send a message, Ovechkin said, “It’s playoffs, why do you have to send a message?
“It’s not a good time to send a message. We (are) here to do whatever it takes to get the win and move forward. I don’t think it’s to send a message or something.”
Said Trotz: “The bottom line is we need him to be really good. He’s got to respond this next game and be a difference maker for us. We need contributions from everybody in our lineup. We need our top players to be the best players and that goes for everybody from our goaltender right through our lineup, forwards and defence.”
But after how much Washington emphasized the importance of secondary scoring this off-season, the team’s supporting cast is also at fault. The Capitals traded for Eller before the season and then signed winger Brett Connolly, hopeful those two additions would create a more offensive third line that could better match up against Pittsburgh’s.
But with Washington playing seven defencemen, Connolly, who scored 15 goals during the regular season, has been scratched and the Capitals haven’t got a goal from their bottom-six forward corps all series.