HEADING INTO OVIE-TIME
Alex Ovechkin’s emotional pursuit of the Cup could transpire tonight with a series-clinching win in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS — Barry Trotz is having fun these days.
The head coach of the Washington Capitals, who is beginning morning skates by performing a self-deprecating “hot lap” around the rink and jokingly telling reporters to “hydrate” after news conferences, is not the same serious and stressed-out coach of years past.
Part of it is that there’s a lot to be happy about these days.
Up 3-1 in the Stanley Cup final, Trotz is one win away from bringing a championship to Washington. It would also be the first championship for Trotz, who prior to this year had never taken a team past the second round in 18 years of coaching at the NHL level.
That he has done it in the final year of his contract has made his chill demeanour even more impressive.
“It seems like he’s in a really good mood, smiling a lot,” Nicklas Backstrom said. “I don’t know why, but it makes it easier when you win too.”
“He seems pretty relaxed to me,” defenceman John Carlson said, comparing Trotz to previous years. “Yeah, there was definitely a lot of tension. Breaking through like we did against Pittsburgh was not our goal of the season, but it gave us a good, laidback feeling in terms of ‘that was the pressure on us’ not the rest of us. He did a lot better job of that, and it’s trickled down to the players and put us in a pretty good mental space to go out and execute our jobs.”
On Wednesday, Trotz was downplaying the pressures that come with closing out a series and instead encouraged his players to enjoy this moment.
“This is a time to enjoy,” said the bench boss. “You ever going to get to this moment again? You don’t
know. Why make it tense? You have to respect the process, but enjoy it.
“This is not going to happen too often. There’s guys — some of my best friends — they haven’t had this moment. They’re still waiting for it. Some of them have had it and have won Cups. They all have different stories. Mine is I’m going to enjoy this process, because you know it’s taken a long time to get here.”
NOT A GAMER
Many Capitals players were planning to spend the night
before Game 5 playing Mario Kart.
Don’t expect Trotz to join in on the video games.
“They don’t need me in there,” he said. “They’re too competitive. I’d get absolutely crucified there. They would demolish me in that. No, I’m not a video game guy. If you had Pong or something like that. That tells you where I come from.”
FINISH THEM EARLY
The Capitals, who allowed the New York Rangers to come back and win after holding a 3-1 lead in the second
round of the 2015 playoffs, have a history of failing to close out series. That has changed this year.
Washington is 3-0 in elimination games, having put away Columbus, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay when they were on the ropes.
“We’ve talked about it so much. Guys are sick of hearing about it from the meetings. Sick of not getting it done,” Carlson said of winning elimination games. “They all kind of blend together, but I think we have come out with great efforts every closing-out game, and
we’re gonna need a big one. This is a good team at home. It’s going to take a really good effort to get it done.”
CARS ON OVI’S MIND
The Stanley Cup will be in the building for Game 5, but don’t expect Alex Ovechkin to spend any time thinking about it.
“I don’t try to think about it too much what’s going on,” he said. “Just try focusing on different things.”
Such as? “Whatever,” said the superstar winger. “Cars. Hotels. You know, Vegas.”
MAKE YOUR LUCK
The Golden Knights, who scored six goals on 34 shots in Game 1, have managed only four goals on 91 shots in their last three games.
Some would read that as bad luck. Nate Schmidt thinks otherwise.
“I don’t really believe in luck,” said the Vegas defenceman. “I believe in making your own opportunities. You get a chance, you got to score. Things happen in a game. I liked how we played parts of (Game 4). If we can put that together a little bit more, into a full piece of pie — the whole thing — we’ll be a lot better off.”
FLOWER POWER
Marc-Andre Fleury has allowed 12 goals in the past three games. That’s more than he gave up in the entire conference final.
But his teammates haven’t lost faith in him. If anything, they are expecting his best performance yet in Game 5.
“There are good goalies and then there are those few guys who are unbelievable,” Golden Knights forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said. “He is in the unbelievable case. We haven’t helped him the right way to look unbelievable.”
HOME-ICE ADVANTAGE
One thing working in Vegas’ favour is that Game 5 — and potentially Game 7 — is at home, where the team is 7-2 in the playoffs and went 29-10-2 in the regular season.
“We’re comfortable at home,” Vegas defenceman Shea Theodore said. “We like playing in front of our fans. It’s going to be an amazing atmosphere (Thursday) night and definitely something we’re looking forward to. It’s going to be huge coming out knowing our fans are going to be there for us. We’re going to bring our ‘A’ game.”