Of all the ways the Washington

ARLINGTON Connor Brown Jersey , Va. (AP) Capitals have tried to win in the playoffs, none has been as effective as this.They pushed the pace with speed and skill when Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom were part of the ”Young Guns.” They made every game a coin flip with tight, Dale Hunter hockey. Each time, an early exit followed.This year is different. Suddenly, the Capitals are a suffocating defensive team that clogs the middle of the ice and makes even the fastest of opponents look slow.The Vegas Golden Knights are the latest to get frustrated by Washington’s neutral-zone pressure that took a toll on Columbus, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, paving the way for this run to the Stanley Cup Final. After cruising through three rounds with ease, nothing looks easy right now for Vegas because the Capitals have mastered the art of frustration, and are two wins away from hoisting the Cup for the first time.”Offensive teams have certain tendencies, certain routes that they take through the neutral zone, plays they like to make, so if you can be on top of them and turn over some pucks, stifle them Frederik Andersen Jersey , make it hard for them to gain entry with possession, that frustrates skilled players,” defenseman Matt Niskanen said Sunday. ”If you can be in their face, just standing in the way, it’s amazing what that does.”It’s amazing the transformation the Capitals have made since coach Barry Trotz challenged players late in the regular season to embrace this approach. It was clear as early as Game 4 of the first round that the 1-1-3 trap in the neutral zone had the ability to essentially shut down the opposing attack, and since the first two playoff games Washington is 10-2 when scoring first.The Golden Knights have found how difficult it is to try to come back against the Capitals and need to adjust quickly down 2-1 in the Cup Final going into Game 4 Monday night. They have to make some adjustments before it’s too late.”Our guys who have a lot of speed can go back deeper, gather some speed,” winger David Perron said. ”Then the defensemen can try to freeze the first forechecker, kick it wide. These guys coming with speed, if they’re confronted, which they will be most times at the blue line, you can put it in and go on the forecheck. You can have guys hang close to the right wing or up top, and as the puck is coming your way Womens Jake Gardiner Jersey , win the one-on-one battle with support. … We also have to try to not let them set up, so if there’s a turnover, a quick one, we can punt it up, go back on offense.”The Penguins and Lightning tried that and couldn’t crack the Capitals well enough to advance.”They’re really good at slowing you down,” Lightning forward J.T. Miller said during the Eastern Conference final. ”Right when you want to just chip it and go, there’s a guy, there’s a wall there, and guys are ready to go back and get it on the other side. … It’s just their ability to stand up and make you force plays because it looks like there’s more ice than there is, and then all of a sudden they do a good job of staying in front and retrieving pucks.”Vegas is built on speed, but it’s hard to harness it if players can’t get blue line to blue line with the puck to create any offense. When the Capitals took a lead in Game 3, they went into their now-patented scheme.”It’s just kind of a group mentality to make life difficult on them,” winger Tom Wilson said. ”I think that’s when we’re at our best as a team is when we’re playing physical Matt Bartkowski Jersey Womens , we’re taking away time and space, making it difficult on their top guys.”That difficulty wears on a team, and Trotz said it’s noticeable when an opponent tries to change its game and manage the puck differently to counterbalance the trap. When it works effectively, not only does it limit changes against, but it creates the kind of odd-man rushes that have paced Washington’s offense this postseason.”It’s important to recognize moments when you can pressure, and we don’t want to get away from that, where we can send two guys and try to force teams into mistakes,” Niskanen said. ”If you can hold either the red line or the blue line with layers of support, you can force teams into turnovers, and we’ve done a good job of that.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals— Talk about a controversial oil change. If the Edmonton Oilers have a shot at the NHL playoffs next spring, it'll have to be without Todd McLellan. The team dumped the coach, replacing him with Ken Hitchcock on Tuesday, just as the Oilers are preparing for a road swing in California.The firing took place as the Oilers struggle to play .500-level hockey. Their regular season record stands at聽9-10-1 Youth John Tavares Jersey , including losing two of their last games and six of their last seven matches. Hired in 2015, McLellan has helmed a team with loads of talent with the likes of Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Leon Draisaitl on the ice, but has taken the Oilers to the playoffs only once. That was back in the spring of 2017, when the team made it to the second round of post-season play, only to lose to the Anaheim Ducks.advertising tsn.caDespite the team's lackluster performance of late, which has Edmonton sitting in sixth place in the Western Conference, McLellan leaves a team that statistically did better than they looked on the ice with a 123-119-24 regular season record under his watch. But his previous coaching stint with the San Jose, where he coached before his Edmonton hire, yielded better results including six playoff berths.Hitchcock, who retired this spring after a second coaching run with the Dallas Stars, although he's very familiar with the Oilers. The veteran of 22 seasons behind the bench was born in the city and was a constant burr in Edmonton's saddle, frequently beating them in the playoffs. In 1998 Nazem Kadri Jersey , Dallas swept the Oilers in four games on the road to the team's only Stanley Cup victory, which saw them dump the Buffalo Sabres at the NHL summit in six games. The veteran coach registered 800 lifetime NHL wins on Dec. 21, 2017 before announcing his retirement.advertisingRELATED: The Edmonton Oilers Rely Too Much On Connor McDavidHitchcock faces the task of directing a team with shaky goaltending, very little depth on the forward lines, a defence that can't carry the puck into opposition territory. Despite his credentials, Hitchcock is deeply versed in executing a physical, defensive-minded style of play, which may go against the grain of Edmonton's flashy, speedy offensive philosophy. How the Oilers make the adjustment to Hitchcock's tactics will be interesting in the 62 regular season games that remain.

Weitere Artikel der Kategorie Allgemein

• Kleinhirninfarkt- Drehschwindel und extremes Erbrechen
• leichter schlaganfall warum nimmt mann uns nicht ernst
• Medikamente nach Schlaganfall.....was ist richtig??
• Kleinhirninfarkt
• Fliegen nach SA