JJ Regan: What The Capitals Need To Do To Turn Things Around

The Philadelphia Flyers are winners of seven straight, and have a pulled within 1 point of Washington in the Metropolitan division after their 5-2 win over the Capitals. The Caps’ struggles are no secret and J.J. Regan of NBC Sports Washington joined The Doc and Galdi Show to try to make sense of this slump and to suggest how Washington can improve their power play.

Regan on the Capitals goalies being left out to dry…

That is a recurring theme of the goalies being left out to dry. There were two goals where there was simple net-goal presence where the Flyers were there just ready for a rebound and they weren’t getting boxed out and then quick rushes by where the Caps back-check was just late.

Regan on the team’s defensive struggles and playing too aggressive offensively…

This team is not very good defensively right now and in all honesty they haven’t really been that great defensively all season. The Caps are a very aggressive team. They wanted more offense from their defense, that was definitely a point of emphasis coming into the season. And we see the defense jumping more into the offensive plays at times, but the fact is and what we’re seeing now is that this team is not good enough defensively to be as aggressive, offensively, as they want to be and that’s why you’re seeing this team so many times struggling to break the puck out of its zone because the defense has the puck and the offense is already halfway down the ice. Teams are just stepping in, cutting off those stretch passes and why we are seeing quick counter attacks really hurting the Caps. Yes they are trying to be more aggressive, and it was successful at the start of the year, but now it’s really coming to hurt them because they’re just not good enough defensively to play that aggressively.

On the team’s power play struggles…

It’s slow, that’s the biggest thing to me. They’re moving the puck far too slow. I watched a couple of power plays from a few years ago, it’s just striking how much more quickly they used to move the puck. There would be a pass and the puck would immediately be off your stick to the next guy and to the next guy. Nobody could keep up with it and that’s how they kept getting guys like TJ Oshie or Ovechkin open.

On minor tweaks he would make to the team’s power play…

Tell Tom Wilson ‘He’s on the top power play. Your job is to get in the face of the goalie and make sure he doesn’t see the puck’. That would be a minor change. The other thing they need to do is everyone else needs to shoot more. Everyone besides Ovechkin needs to shoot more.

The Capitals are back in action Thursday night when they take on the New York Rangers in Manhattan.

JJ Regan: What The Capitals Need To Do To Turn Things Around  was originally published on theteam980.com