The Effects of Shortened Camp, No Preseason Already Starting to Show for Caps

The effects of a short camp, no preseason already starting to show originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington

As Ilya Samsonov went behind the net to retrieve the puck, Justin Schultz was heading back with Penguins forward Teddy Blueger hot on his heels. Seeing the pressure, Samsonov elected to backhand the puck to the corner. Instead of following Schultz, however, Blueger broke off his pursuit and cut to the other side of the net and in order cut off the pass. Unaware that Blueger was there, Samsonov tried to dump the puck off to the corner, but Bleuger intercepted it. He passed to the slot where Colton Sceviour was able to bury it top-shelf before Samsonov could get back in time to cover the net.

Whenever a goalie goes behind the net to retrieve a puck, everyone needs to be on the same page. There is almost always a forechecker skating in to pester the goalie and try to force a turnover so everyone has to know where the goalie is going with the puck. Otherwise, you leave yourself open to...well, exactly what happened in Pittsburgh's second goal against the Capitals on Sunday.

That kind of miscommunication can't happen, but it's going to in a season with a shortened training camp, no preseason, a young netminder and a new coach. With the season now three games old, the effect of not having enough practice time to develop communication and chemistry is already on display.

When asked about Samsonov's turnover that led to the goal, Peter Laviolette said that kind of miscommunication can be credited to the lack of practice time.

"The second [goal] is probably that," Laviolette said. "It was a goalie handover and we're going back. In training camp we did work on in practice, there's a drill that we do that works on the goalie communication and the puck exchange between goalie and defenseman. [Blueger] made a nice read on it."

It's not something the team had enough time to go over or game experience with which the preseason can provide.

Beyond just the miscommunication, other cracks are starting to form in the Caps' game.

In Thursday's win over the Buffalo Sabres, Washington looked fresh, they were responding well to Laviolette's new system, the breakouts were great, the forecheck was dominant and the top line seemingly could do whatever it wanted. Since then, the Caps have reverted to some bad habits. Poor puck management has led to the team taking bad penalties. In each of the past two games, Washington has taken five minor penalties as they have not been able to maintain possession of the puck or play a consistent 60 minutes.

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But it's not as if the team is going to get much practice time to continue to work on these issues. The condensed game schedule means that, on top of the shortened camp, there is very little practice time within the season. Washington's first full practice -- not including a morning skate -- since the season began on Thursday will be on Monday. And even then, the heavy workload may limit how much Laviolette can accomplish.

"I'm not sure how we'll handle that ice [time] just because I'm also managing the schedule," Laviolette said. "It's three games in four-and-a-half days, five days with this game being a noontime so I've got to manage where our group's at because we've got another big game coming up."

The bottom line is that the Capitals will have to learn as they go and continue to adjust to the new system and expectations of Laviolette in order to improve over time. This season is the hockey equivalent of being taught to swim by being thrown in the deep end.

Either they will sink or they will swim.

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