Barry Trotz wants Capitals to start faster, should we be concerned?
Trotz worries about regression if team doesn’t score first goal more often
Barry Trotz is one of the most candid coaches in recent memory when it comes to admitting his team’s shortcomings. He was frank again in an interview with Comcast SportsNet’s Jill Sorensen:
Starts for me are paramount. We’re a very confident team, and so we feel like if we give up the first goal we can always come back. I’d like to eliminate that.
Hallelujah.
The Capitals skated like scoring first would be impolite last season. They gave up the first goal 44 times – or more than half of their games. Trotz is over it.
Being an even or a minus in the first period [goal differential], our record doesn’t fit with the rest of the league when you give up that first goal. Just like anything, sometimes it catches up to you. It hasn’t in two years, but I don’t want to gamble that it’s not going to catch up to us, so that’s an area we want to correct.
I could cry. The accountability. The awareness. The acknowledgement of statistical regression.
He’s right. The Caps were 22-16-6 in the 44 games they coughed up the first goal last year. If you lump the two loss columns together, that’s a .500 winning percentage. The rest of the league averaged .300. Plus, only Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Dallas, and Los Angeles had a winning percentage in the .400’s.
The story was a little different in 2014-15. The Capitals still gave up the first goal at an alarming amount – 39 times. The difference is they couldn’t come back from it that year; they won just eight of those games for a .205 winning percentage.
If you put the two seasons together, the Caps are 30-40-13 in 83 games under Trotz when allowing the first goal. That’s a .361 winning percentage.
Check out the full interview for more insight below. Plus, he’s wearing a Nats polo. Barry Trotz is the champion of DC sports synergy.
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