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Barrie Trotz: Helping Columbus Win One Bad Move at a Time

April 14, 2018, 11:52 AM ET [55 Comments]
James Tanner
Washington Capitals Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


For 546 minutes, over 63 games this year Christian Djoos was partnered with John Carlson.

The pairing posted nearly a 54% CF rating.

Without Christian Djoos, the Capitals' 60 point, possibly Norris Trophy nominated defenseman John Carlson drops to a 49% player.

Christian Djoos - playing decently tough, top four minutes - was demoted once the Capitals acquired Michael Kempny from the Blackhawks near the trade deadline.

Since Kempny took Djoos' job, John Carlson is worse, Holty was worse, and the Capitals were worse.

Kempny doesn't provide any more offense than Christian Djoos, but he does make John Carlson demonstrably worse and I can't figure out why this was such an automatic move.

If I had to rank the Capitals defense, I'd say Christian Djoos is their fourth best defenseman. But he hasn't been a regular lately, and he didn't start in game one of the Playoffs.

Barrie Trotz is in competition with Randy Carlyle for the worst coach in the NHL, if you want my opinion.

He is brutal.

Trotz makes terrible decision after terrible decision and it makes following the Capitals extremely frustrating. Whether it's ignorance to the actual quality of play Brooks Orpik, his ignorance regarding advanced stats and analytics, or his weird decisions to scratch good player or shove them far down in the lineup at the expense of terrible players like Chandler Stephenson and Devonte Smith-Pelly/ Half of what he does is inexplicable.



Tonight, if T.J Oshie can play - still TBD - it's thought he's going to scratch Brett Connolly. Connolly is an underrated player who gives you 15 goals and some decent possession numbers.(Not this year, but he's still better relative to guys who'd replace him). He was formerly a member of one of the NHL's best third lines.

Connolly is fifth on the Caps in p/60 (behind Kuznetsov, Ovechkin, Backstrom, Eller) while putting up better relative Corsi than Chiasson, Smith-Pelly, Stephenson, or Beagle - four guys who won't come out of the lineup before him.

To sum up: Barrie Trotz is or might as well be a double agent working towards helping the Blue Jackets win.




*pukes a little bit in mouth*

Game Two is tonight. No word yet on if Trotz is going to give the net to Holtby or a random emergency backup goalie with a day job.

The main thing though: always sit your potential Hall of Fame goalie when it's the Playoffs.

Stats from naturalstattrick.com
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