Trotz likes Ovechkin’s Game 7 boast
Caps face uphill battle against Rangers
ARLINGTON, VA. — There are four Stanley Cup banners hanging from the rafters at Madison Square Garden in New York. But at the Verizon Center in Washington, the only things worth celebrating are the basketball team’s successes.
Even then, it is slim pickings.
So when Alex Ovechkin promised that the Capitals would win Game 7 at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, it sort of rang hollow, the kind of thing you expect a player to say but don’t actually believe it will necessarily come true.
After all, he is not exactly Mark Messier. And these are not the Rangers, at least where reputations are concerned.
Barry Trotz said they are trying to change that. A day after losing 4-3 to the Rangers on Sunday night, the Capitals head coach talked about tainted legacies, baseball curses and chasing away the ghosts of the past. Mostly, though, he talked about the oft-times long wait for a championship.
“We can change that history,” Trotz said at the Capitals practice facility on an off day for the team. “I do believe the Boston Red Sox did win a World Series right? They went a long stretch there, but they did win. The odds were in their favour at some point. That’s what I’m saying. The odds are in our favour.
“This group can do something and you want to change history, you want to change perception. You just go out and do it. I think that should motivate you, not bring you down.”
Not surprisingly, Trotz said he loved that Ovechkin was brave enough to put himself out there (the headline in the New York Post read ‘Cocky Alex Ovechkin guarantees Game 7 win’) by saying that the Capitals would make the Eastern Conference final for the first time since 1998.
It was a bold, if not ballsy, statement. And after blowing a 3-1 series lead with losses in Games 5 and 6, it was exactly what the Capitals needed as they head into a deciding game where the pressure seems to be resting on their shoulders.
“What do you expect a player to say?” asked Trotz. “I love that. I love that a player has got the wherewithal ... to say, hey we’re going to go there and we’re going to go after them and we’re going to leave it out there. I have a lot of respect for players who say that.”
As Trotz put it, the Capitals have a chance to do something special. To come back with a whopper of a “fishing story” where the details get more exaggerated over time.
Right now, Washington’s history is not worth even talking about.
There is a stigma attached to this team that Trotz knows well.
The feeling outside the dressing room and around the league is that the Capitals have big-name stars who are unable to win the big-time games. Since Ovechkin arrived in 2005, the team has failed to make it past the second round. During that span, Washington has lost five of the eight times a series has gone the distance, with two Game 7 losses to New York in 2012 and 2013. They did beat the Rangers in Game 7 in 2009.
The Rangers, meanwhile, are 6-0 all-time in Game 7s at home.
“I was reading some stuff where our record’s not been good as an organization,” said Trotz. “True. Absolutely true. But we can change that.”
Trotz is still relatively new to this team, having been hired last summer. But he is part of this, too. In 15 years in Nashville, he made it past the first round only twice and never reached the Western Conference final. Some said it was because of the team he was given.
But now that he has finally been given the horses to succeed, Trotz also needs to back it up.
“That’s the mindset that you need to have,” said Trotz. “If you don’t have that, you might as well pack your bags. I’d rather have that than no one say anything and cower and put their eyes down and not look you in the face and cower from anything that might be considered bold or controversial or whatever.
“I don’t see a Stanley Cup banner here yet,” he said.
The key word was “yet.”