Gästebuch » The physical part is not the issue

ARLINGTON Vladimir Tarasenko Jersey , Va. (AP) Barry Trotz started dancing as soon as he walked into the locker room mid-celebration.Within seconds, players doused him with beer and champagne, jumped around him and hugged their beloved coach. Trotz couldn’t see but still had plenty of clarity in that moment.”I could feel the love,” he said.Veteran Brooks Orpik believes that moment showed the admiration and respect Washington Capitals players have for Trotz, a pending free agent at the peak of his career after winning the Stanley Cup. Trotz’s contract status is the biggest question facing Washington as the offseason begins.Trotz wants to be back, and general manager Brian MacLellan wants to sign the 55-year-old to an extension. Now it’s a matter of them getting a deal done.Trotz and MacLellan met Wednesday to begin discussing a new contract. It’s uncommon for an established coach of a contending team to go through a lame-duck season and even rarer for a Cup-winner to not be back the next season.”We’ve got lots of good things going,” Trotz said. ”We’ll work through what we need to do. If that’s what they want, then something will get done. If not, we’ll deal with that.”MacLellan and the Capitals opted not to extend Trotz last summer following a second consecutive Presidents’ Trophy-winning season that ended with a second-round exit at the hands of the eventual champion Pittsburgh Penguins. After winning the Cup at Vegas, MacLellan said Trotz would be back if he wants to be.At the championship rally Tuesday, Trotz dropped hints of wanting to return by saying, ”We’ll do it again” and noting afterward, ”We’ll get something done.” He reiterated Wednesday he likes the area for his family and enjoys coaching this team.MacLellan said he’ll meet with ownership over the next week and that he doesn’t believe either side feels pressure to get a deal done given Trotz’s contract expires June 30. Asked how confident he feels about being able to re-sign Trotz, MacLellan said: ”I don’t know. We’ll find out.”It’s up to owner Ted Leonsis, team President Dick Patrick and MacLellan to come to Trotz with an offer that makes sense for him to return. The New York Islanders currently have an opening, and other teams around the NHL might even fire their coaches to hire Trotz Alex Killorn Jersey Kids , whose relaxed attitude during the playoffs contributed to the Capitals’ run.”Barry was the right coach for this group,” defenseman Matt Niskanen said. ”The things that he preaches turns out to be really important. It works for our group.”Based on the salaries of other Cup-winning coaches like Toronto’s Mike Babcock, Chicago’s Joel Quenneville and Montreal’s Claude Julien, it’s reasonable to think Trotz could make $4 million-plus annually with the Capitals or another team.Over the past 40 years, only four Stanley Cup-winning coaches didn’t return to that team the next season. Scotty Bowman left Montreal to become Buffalo’s GM in 1979, retired after winning with Detroit in 2002 and replaced Bob Johnson in Pittsburgh in 1991 when Johnson became ill. The other instance was when Mike Keenan left the Rangers after winning in 1994 because of a disagreement with GM Neil Smith and New York’s management.That’s the most similar situation to Trotz, a proud veteran of 19 NHL seasons who went through a lame-duck season with prospective coach-in-waiting Todd Reirden on his staff. If Trotz returns, Reirden would likely be given the chance to catch on elsewhere.Players widely want to see Trotz back in charge next season, in part because he pushed the right buttons on the way to the franchise’s first title and lived the pain and success with them on the way to the Cup.”He’s been through adversity like the rest of us,” goaltender Braden Holtby said. ”He’s a huge part -him and the rest of the coaching staff. They gave us a good game plan and we executed it. I think his best quality this year probably was letting us kind of take care of ourselves. Showing us that if we’re going to have success we need to find it in our locker room ourselves and he did that.”NOTES: Orpik had to have the tip of his left pinkie finger stitched back on after a slash from Vegas’ Erik Haula late in Game 2 of the final. The 37-year-old defenseman also expects to have a hand injury from the first round checked out Friday. … Center Nicklas Backstrom revealed he had two fractures in his right index finger from a Justin Schultz slap shot in Game 5 of the second round that caused him to miss four games. … Center Evgeny Kuznetsov injured his left shoulder in Game 2 of the final on a hit from Brayden McNabb. … Winger Andre Burakovsky broke his right thumb in the first round and returned during the conference final.— T.J. Oshie stepped to the microphone and apologized for his voice.It was hoarse from days and nights of celebrating the Washington Capitals‘ Stanley Cup triumph and fans now had gathered on the National Mall after the championship parade. Oshie had enough left to start a chant among the tens of thousands of fans: “Back-to-back! Back-to-back!”With a full voice and the shortest summer of his career behind him, Oshie hasn’t changed his tune that the Capitals can repeat.“If we continue with our style of play and everyone chips in like we did, I think we have a really good chance,” Oshie said. “I know the odds are against us, we had a short summer, everyone else has a couple more months of training on them. But we still have all the pieces.”Even though the Pittsburgh Penguins went back-to-back in 2016 and 2017, the odds are against Washington repeating despite bringing back an almost identical roster from last year’s run. What the Capitals showed teams gunning for the Cup in 2019 is how a championship window is never closed as long you make the playoffs. The Penguins Andrei Vasilevskiy Jersey , Boston and Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference, and the San Jose Sharks and St. Louis Blues in the West, take note: Previous postseason success and failure is little indication of what’ll happen next.“They don’t give up after a lot of tough years,” Blues winger Vladimir Tarasenko said of the Caps. “They work on their game, play hard and finally reach their goal. This is really good example for us. I think that’s what we need to try to do.”The race to the playoffs begins with the Capitals and Vegas Golden Knights not favored to make it back to the Cup Final, Sidney Crosby ready to take back the trophy he has hoisted three times, Connor McDavid looking to lift the Oilers back into contention and an influx of talent in the West again threatening to make this spring another heavyweight rumble.San Jose added two-time Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Erik Karlsson, St. Louis traded for center Ryan O’Reilly and Minnesota changed general managers to take another run at an elusive title. Tampa Bay kept its deep core together, Boston is hoping for better health and Pittsburgh is loading up for another shot with Crosby eager to one-up career rival Alex Ovechkin again.“He’s very determined this year,” said Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, who like Crosby is a native of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. “With the Penguins, it’s Stanley Cup or nothing for them. … They have a great team. But Sid’s their leader. Sid’s the best player in the world and he’s ready, for sure.”The Capitals’ run through the playoffs mirrored the Penguins’ three championships over the past decade in that they were built on stellar goaltending and center depth. Like Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and a host of third-line centers, Washington’s Evgeny Kuznetsov http://www.officiallightningprostore.com/authentic-adidas-anton-stralman-jersey , Nicklas Backstrom and Lars Eller showed they could match up against anyone and control games at home and on the road.“They were pretty deep, obviously, in the middle — or anywhere, really,” Bruins center Patrice Bergeron said. “Obviously the center position I think is something that has a lot of impact in different ways in the game.”The Blues can now go down the middle with O’Reilly, Brayden Schenn and Tyler Bozak, and the Maple Leafs’ signing of John Tavares gives them a 1-2-3 punch of the former Islanders captain, Auston Matthews and Nazem Kadri.Matthews, Kadri and the Maple Leafs pushed Washington to six games before losing in the first round in 2017 but now have the horses to contend with anyone in the league. With Cup expectations hovering over the center of the hockey universe, the Capitals’ years of playoff roadblocks and eventually breaking through make for another important lesson for the Maple Leafs.“That’s really how hard it is,” Matthews said. “It’s not easy. It’s not just a walk in the park. Just because we added John Tavares doesn’t mean it’s going to be a walk in the park for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs. We still got to get there and no matter who you’re playing, it’s going to be a battle.”One battle the Capitals now face is trying to avoid any kind of Stanley Cup hangover, which either manifests as a slow start or a rough patch once the adrenaline wears off this fall. Jonathan Toews, who led the Blackhawks to the Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015 said: “It’s not really my problem. That’s up to them to figure out.”Vegas goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, who went through the Capitals to help the Penguins win it all in 2009 Womens Brayden Point Jersey , 2016 and 2017, also isn’t in the business of giving Washington advice, but he remembers it being an uphill climb.“Every time I went to the Final, next (season) the first couple months were a little rough,” Fleury said. “It’s just trying to forget about the past as quickly as possible. … The parity’s so good around the league that the playoff race is very intense down the stretch, so you need those points early in the season to help you out.”Parity is reality in a league that has featured a turnover of seven of 16 playoff teams each of the past two years. Getting in really is half the battle for everyone, and especially the Capitals with the mental challenge of gearing back up after winning it all.“The guys go through such a grind to win a championship, and they know how much they’ve exerted,” said Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour, who was captain of the Hurricanes when they won the Cup in 2006 and missed the playoffs in 2007. “The physical part is not the issue. It’s mentally getting ready to battle it up again and rev it up. … If you can figure that out, then I think you have a chance to win a few Cups in a row.”