Now, it's not two points. They must exact revenge on Jacob Trouba for injuring Ryan Leonard last month. Trouba, who has escaped suspension somehow on like 20 bad hits, needs to learn a lesson - as well as the rest of the league - you don't hit our players like this. Dylan McIlrath is in - surely he will approach Trouba quickly in this one - while the Capitals will be without Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas due to injury.
What Mac does for us, and what he does as a player, and what he's done through his career goes so much further than the physical part of the game. There's so many things that he brings to our group. And I'm not even talking about on the ice. I'm talking about in the locker room, his energy, his buy-in, how much he cares, how hard he competes. So that's evaluated every day.
What a stinker. We should have known it would be so early on, when Ryan Donato was up close and personal with Logan Thompson to score the opening goal. A pattern was established there of poor defensive coverage. The Caps allowed six high-danger chances in the first period. They got better defensively as the game wore on, but they still struggled to finish chances on attack.
"Well, I'll tell you something I did learn in my previous organization," Carbery said, smiling. "You do not leave the day before, even if the players want to. When they say travel day of, they mean travel day of."
Speaking for everyone on the site, we remain incredibly grateful to be in this spot - like, just existing - to cover our favorite hockey team in a high-level way. We put our hearts and souls into this. We dedicate every ounce of energy we have (I sincerely work 12-16 hours a day, almost every day) so that what we do, which, I think, is exceptional and honest work, is expected... normal... nothing out of the ordinary.
It is a good point of, 'Osh is one of the greatest to ever do it. Why wouldn't we utilize that asset and resource if we could?' And we've been down that road...We had him come in and talk. Not in a group setting; it was more individual. (Capitals goaltending coach) Scott Murray was trying to connect with each guy that was going to potentially do a shootout, talk to them about their moves. TJ Oshie was brought in to consult with that process.