The Caps came back from the All-Star break Tuesday night with a 5-2 loss to the Canadiens, their fifth straight loss, and are now seventh in the Metro and 12th in the East. Not a great stretch for Coach Carbs and crew, and after talking to the Junkies about how he became a 49ers fan (relevant of course, to Sunday’s big game), Spencer dove into just what’s going on with the Caps.
Starting with, that is, what he said to the team as they were down 3-0 at the first intermission last night.
“I addressed the group, and sometimes, that’s done in different ways. Sometimes you need to be a little bit more passionate and have a little bit more assertiveness, sometimes it’s just a ‘hey, here's what we need to do to turn this momentum,’ and sometimes it's a strategic Xs and Os thing that we gotta make some adjustments,” Carbs said. “In that case, just not nearly good enough and up to our standard, and just tough. It's not a lack of effort, we just make some really poor plays with the puck throughout our lineup in key situations that just end up in the back of the net.”
Mistakes happen, but…
“You're gonna make little mistakes throughout the game, but we just are making five or six massive, massive mistakes through periods of time,” Carbs said, “and it's hard because guys are trying to do the right thing. A lot of young players are trying to establish themselves as NHL players and some guys are trying to re-establish themselves, and they're trying do the right thing, but we just haven't been able to do it consistently, and that's a big issue.”
The Caps also ae now going forward without Evgeny Kuznetsov, out indefinitely after entering the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistnce Program, and that’s a big loss on the ice.
“I mean, he's a big part of our team and has been for a long time,” Carbery said. “He plays in a lot of different situations and plays the center ice, which is the most important forward position. It puts us in an even more difficult spot where we just don't have a lot of firepower through our lineup. It means opportunity for other players to step up, but it just makes it more challenging. When we go into games, let’s say there’s five different boxes we need to check to have success, and his absence hurts. It puts us in a difficult spot every night without him and Backstrom.”
More importantly, of course, is that Kuzy gets the assistance he needs, and Carbery himself had no idea how much his center was struggling.
“I had no idea, no clue, no inclination, so there was nothing on my end,” Carbs said. “We recalled Mike Sgarbossa to fill his role, veteran who has played some NHL games, so he gets an opportunity and hopefully can take advantage of it.”
Take a listen above to Carbs' entire segment, which also included a more in-depth look at Tuesday's loss, Sonny Milano's status, the remaining schedule and more.