Washington Capitals stars getting offensive in balanced winning ways

Anaheim’s Bruce Boudreau is as talkative as they come on so many topics. His morning skate press scrums are dream material for a reporter. Then ask him about what he thinks about the Washington Capitals, and it’s squirm time for the man they call ‘Gabby’ for his chatty nature.

“They’re not doing anything different than when I was there. Same thing,” he said shrugging his shoulders. “Numbers are the same. Actually Alex (Ovechkin’s) plus-minus is less now than it used to be.”

Ha, nice little dig there at the coaching carousel that ensued with the Caps since Boudreau was fired in 2011-12. Still kind of mind blowing that Dale Hunter was seen as a better option.

That being said Boudreau actually has a point. Because the man behind the bench now – Barry Trotz – is quite similar to Boudreau. Bald? Check. Talkative? Yessir. Solid coaching background? Check.

And with a guy sans an NHL playing acumen, the Caps’ big stars – namely Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom are flourishing (and winning) once again. Backstrom is tied for the NHL lead with 64 points. Ovi is on top of the NHL goal scoring race with 38, though with a less-maligned plus-12 rating, rather than the minus-35 he had a year ago when he won the Rocket Richard Trophy.  He’s being just as prolific as usual scoring, it just feels different with him.

Wrote Sporting News last week on Ovechkin during a game when he laughed and jabbed and slashed at the Penguins in a Washington win:

Maybe he's managed to unburden himself from expectations. Maybe, with a team full of young, talented forwards, and a deep-at-last group of defensemen, and a tuned-up goalie, he realizes that the franchise's future is as bright as it's been since 2010. 

And now, Backstrom is being pushed for the Hart Trophy by his coach according to The Washington Post:

And how about considering awarding the Hart Trophy, for the league’s most valuable player, to the skater currently leading the NHL in points, assists (45) and power play points (27)?

“He’s making a case for that, absolutely,” Trotz said. “There’s a number of people who I think might recognize that. I think we’ve got a couple guys who are there, that are fighting for … not really fighting for recognition, but deserve the recognition. So yeah. Absolutely. We’ve got a few MVPs on our team.”

As long as the dynamic Ovechkin is on the Caps, there is no way Backstrom will win the Hart. Ovechkin is still the proverbial straw that stirs the drink – Reggie Jackson style, regardless of all the little detail type plays Backstrom makes to supplement his ownscoring.

It’s funny only in that these two players don’t seem to be stifled in any way at all, which was a worry at the start of the year. The Capitals hired Trotz to bring defensive structure to Washington, a team that had lost its way first under Boudreau, then under Hunter and finally the ill-fated Adam Oates experiment.

But Washington has continued its offensive identity, ranking seventh in the NHL at 2.92 goals per-game. Defensively, the Caps rank sixth at 2.43 goals per-game. Maybe its more a balance thing with Trotz.

And of course the wins have been there with Washington vying for the Metropolitan Division lead with 76 points overall.

When Trotz was fired by the Nashville Predators last offseason, he was painted as a defensive-minded coach, though he had some pretty excellent offensive teams with the Predators in the middle part of last decade.

He’s still had problems meshing with Washington’s younger forwards, but he’s gotten the stars to perform, and that’s what the Caps needed at least to get back on track as a team.

This squad was too talented and too well-coached for it to not succeed. And now that it’s humming along at a solid clip with good balance shouldn’t be a shock.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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