Everyone knows the situation in Washington. A team tight against the salary cap still loaded up on players and hired the best available head coach on the market in the offseason in a push for the Stanley Cup. With a veteran core, the championship window could come crashing shut at any point. If the Capitals hope to win a second Stanley Cup, it has to happen now or it may not happen at all and that's the mentality of the team in the early stages of training camp.
Todd Reirden ultimately received much of the blame for the team's lack of success that past two seasons and now he is gone. But the players realize the coaching change was a message to them as well.
“I’ve been through five or six coaches now and I think every time a coach is let go you as players, or at least myself personally, I know that the results that we have are unacceptable," T.J. Oshie said. "Kind of the way the hockey world works is usually the coach is the first ones to go and if things don’t change, then the team kind of gets pulled apart."
But with the departure of Reirden also comes the arrival of Peter Laviolette and the excitement over the possibilities that lay before the team now with a Stanley Cup-winning head coach at the helm.
"When things go bad and you lose, changes are going to be made and new opportunities are going to come and that's kind of where we're all at," John Carlson said, "Excited to start new and start fresh and hopefully do some great things this year."
That level of excitement did not seem to be there in a lackluster postseason performance in 2020 in which the team just seemed outmatched and almost disinterested at times.
That will improve under Laviolette, not just because of his reputation as a coach of being someone who can hold players accountable, but because of the reality of Washington's situation. If they don't win it this year, this core may not get another chance.
"We’ve got a great core group here," Nicklas Backstrom said. "We’ve added some really good players and I think the drive is there. I think with the new coaching staff coming here just ramping everything up they’ll bring some motivation to the locker room as well."
"There definitely has to be a sense of urgency and just a different level of commitment by the players to get where we want to be," Oshie said. "I think everyone knows where that is.”
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Caps enter the new season with a sense of urgency - NBC Sports
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