The real interesting part of this game however was some of Barry Trotz's coaching decisions in the third period and his overreliance on the team's third line and especially, Jay Beagle. Beagle has established himself as Trotz's pet so far both this season and last and while he certainly is a useful, versatile player - generator of offence, he is not. Beagle played most of his minutes in the third period at 5:45 with six of his shifts coming after the Penguins had rebounded to take a 2-1 lead. Why he got so much ice time with the Caps desperately needing offence is a question really worth asking Trotz. Beagle actually got more even-strength ice time than last week's First Star of the week Evgeny Kuznetsov, their highly skilled sophomore Andre Burakovsky, and possession legend Justin Williams in the third period. The Caps are a team with immense offensive depth, and yet they failed to properly utilize it when they needed it most last night.
So, perhaps Trotz would have regretted some of these decisions with hindsight today? Well, he regretted some decisions but not the ones that were actually costly. As Washington Capitals beat writer Isabelle Khurshudyan tweeted this morning, Barry Trotz had this to say about the Capitals 4th line:
"Maybe two decent shifts, and then, they've got to be better for us. That's not good enough."
This is where I get confused. For starters, Brooks Laich and Chandler Stephenson, who comprise 2/3 of the Caps fourth line, only played 7:16 and 5:42, respectively. Despite this, they managed to stay above water in terms of possession and the other member of that fourth line, Burakovsky, put up the team's best SAT +/- at +10 (17 CF, 7 CA). I completely understand there is more to the game than these numbers, but when your fourth line provides positive possession that is really what you hope from a fourth line. Trotz is undoubtedly referring to the 2nd Penguins goal in which the fourth line got stuck out against the Evgeni Malkin line and conceded a goal to Phil Kessel which was not exemplary defence but why were they even out there against that line in the first place? A rookie center against a top 5 center in the NHL? No surprise how that will turn out. That goal was on Trotz's line-matching in that circumstance, not on the fourth line.
But back to the third line. They have not been good this season, full stop. Wilson and Beagle are the only two regular forwards on the team who have been below 50% in terms of score-adjusted possession and they have not been facing the toughest competition either. Perhaps Trotz sees them as limiting quality scoring chances? Wrong again. They have worse numbers when looking at scoring chance numbers (via war-on-ice.com) than examining normal shot attempts.
Trotz pledged to move Wilson up the lineup this season and while he has, he's also been plagued with less-skilled linemates. Beagle is the main culprit of my criticism here as he is given the most opportunity in high-pressure situations, like he was last night. With 2:42 remaining in the third period and the Caps having been buzzing around the Penguins zone for the last few minutes, Beagle hops on the ice inexplicably to join T.J. Oshie and Alex Ovechkin. One of these is not like the other.
Here we can see Beagle with the puck coming through center. Ideally, a strong puck-carrier would be on this line to gain the zone with control and move forward from there. Instead, Beagle has the puck with two extremely skilled wingers on his flanks. Notice Oshie at the top of the screen skating down the wing with boatloads of room. Beagle has the space to enter the zone and dish the puck to Oshie but he's more of a dump-and-chase guy. Fair enough, Caps have a strong forecheck. But, wait:
Beagle's attempted dump-in inexplicably bounces off of his stick and lands right on the tape of the Penguins defender who is able to chip it off the glass and out to safety. This is with less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds in the third period when time is of the essence; not ideal. The Penguins would soon ice the game with a beautiful empty-net flip by Nick Bonino (who, coincidentally, is a much better 3rd line center option than Beagle). I will not belabor the fact that Beagle was again out with 27 seconds left in the game for an offensive-zone draw as the Caps needed 2 goals now.
The conclusion? Beagle should not under any circumstances be on the ice with this little time left in a game when your team needs a goal. And further to that point, the Caps 3rd line is just not working right now and with a few tweaks, their bottom six could be a lot stronger. I wouldn't mind seeing Burakovsky teamed up with Wilson and Laich on the third line and Beagle and Jason Chimera moved down to the fourth. After all, Trotz said he was looking for three scoring lines and this would be the best way of going about achieving that.
The Caps still played well enough to win last night but questionable deployment by Trotz and the Caps coaching staff did not help matters and hopefully does not become an ongoing problem.
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