Monday night in Pittsburgh brings an opportunity to do something the Capitals have not been able to do since the 1993-1994 postseason. They can beat the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a win in Game 6.
Seven playoff matchups with the Pens have come and gone. Seven losses for the Capitals. No matter who the coach, the captain, the era or the reason.
It's beyond time. It must happen.
How do they do that? 60 solid minutes of playoff hockey on Monday. Staying out of the penalty box. Something they failed to do in the first two periods Saturday and what they avoided doing in the third period.
Here's what must happen for the Caps to win the series and finally climb over the second-round mountain that Alex Ovechkin, Nick Backstrom, and others have not been able to get past.
1 – Trotz Must Remain Aggressive: Caps Head Coach Barry Trotz hasn't been past the 2nd round either. In Nashville or in Washington. This is Trotz 11th playoff appearance in his career and he has yet to taste the conference final round.
In Saturday night's win, he removed a struggling Devante Smith-Pelly to the fourth line and promoted Jakub Vrana to the first line with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin in the later stages of the second period.
The move made a ton of sense offensively but on the surface, not a lot defensively, but it worked like a charm. On both ends.
It wasn't just switching "DSP" and the lightning-quick Vrana, who now has two goals in this series, it was promoting Vrana and sending a loud message to a key contributor in Smith-Pelly that you can't take two bad penalties and be rewarded. He was kicked to the fourth line with Shane Gersich and Jay Beagle with Alex Chiasson moving up to replace Vrana.
A roll of the dice when his team was reeling defensively and in need of a surge and it worked like a charm. Just like going back to Braden Holtby in Game 2 of the Columbus series (out of desperation) and moving Chandler Stephenson to the 2nd line to replace Andre Burakovsky.
There have been other moves, but you get the point. Sometimes it's a feeling that a coach has and for the most part, Trotz is pushing the right buttons and needs to keep doing so.
2 – Nick Backstrom should play: Trotz was tepid in his words on Sunday afternoon but said Backstrom was going to travel with the team and expects him to play on Monday night.
It goes without saying how important Backstrom is to the Caps. Offensively. Defensively. On the power play. On the penalty kill. Face-offs. He does it all.
TROTZ: Backstrom A 'Game-Time Decision'
Lars Eller has great speed and can do a lot of what Backstrom does and did a more than fine job bumping up from the third-line to replace Backstrom in the third period Saturday, but clearly, the Caps are running thin if Eller plays with T.J. Oshie and Stephenson.
It's likely Travis Boyd would replace Backstrom in the lineup.
3 – Shoot the puck and get dirty: The Caps are more of a speed and skill team than a gritty, grind-it-out, typical championship contender.
Washington has been very good at creating opportunities on the hard fore-check as they did on Brett Connolly's goal Saturday night with Eller and Vrana digging the puck out. Or get a body in front of Matt Murray.
Also, they need to shoot the puck more. In the series, the Caps have had 32, 21, 22, 32, and 34 shots-on-goal. In the playoffs, Caps are 7th in shots per game at 33.1 but the Penguins have allowed the least amount of shots per game in the playoffs league-wide at only 26.3.
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