For the first time in seven years, the Washington Capitals missed the playoffs in 2013-14. The result was sweeping change in the front office, behind the bench and on the ice.
Gone are general manager George McPhee and head coach Adam Oates. The team’s former assistant general manager, Brian MacLellan, has been promoted to the top job in hockey operations, and long-time Nashville Predators coach Barry Trotz has been tasked with overhauling tactics and deploying the troops more effectively.
The Caps expended serious money to give Trotz some options to work with. Defencemen Matt Niskanen and Brooks Orpik were lured away from Pittsburgh to stiffen a defence corps that had some significant weaknesses. The club did lose Mikhail Grabovski to free agency but has internal options to replace him.
The hope is that all this activity will arrest the fall of a team that has been trending downward since winning the Presidents’ Trophy in 2010.
What We Learned in 2013-14
The lesson of 2013-14 was that the Capitals’ collapse was likely to prove irreversi ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
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