March 9th: The Capitals have officially confirmed the extension to Tom Gulitti of NHL.com.
March 4th: The Washington Capitals have signed general manager Brian MacLellan to a multi-year contract extension Saturday, according to Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos. The next question is whether the team will extend head coach Barry Trotz as the coach is in the final year of his contract.
MacLellan has worked his way up the ladder with the Capitals having served as an assistant general manager for seven years with the organization before taking over general manager duties in 2014. While in charge, his teams have reached 100 points three consecutive years. The team’s lone issue has been its struggles in the playoffs as the team has failed to get out of the second round in each of those years.
Even this year, the Capitals are atop the Metropolitan Division this year with 81 points, despite losing a number of players due to their salary cap issues this year. The team lost several key players in the offseason, including defenseman Karl Alzner, Kevin Shattenkirk, Nate Schmidt as well as forwards Justin Williams, Marcus Johansson. Yet the team has continued to succeed with younger players and some veteran additions.
As for Trotz, there are questions whether the Capitals may move on from the veteran coach. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman added on Saturday night’s Headlines segment on Hockey Night in Canada that the team might consider promoting assistant coach Todd Reirden. In the past, other teams have asked to interview Reirden for coaching jobs, including the Arizona Coyotes, Buffalo Sabres and the Florida Panthers.
“It’s gotten to the point where if he’s not signed soon … other teams are going to come out looking for him perhaps,” said Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston during Saturday night’s Headlines segment. “Barry’s future in Washington is very much uncertain.”
Barry Trotz has a top 5 player in the league in Ovechkin, a Vezina caliber goaltender in Holtby, and a more than capable supporting cast, yet he still can’t get this team over the hump.
When was the last time any coach got this team over the hump? Holtby has been pretty bad this year and because of the large contracts that they gave out, the team has very little depth. There’s very little support coming from their bottom six.
Holltby drop
in performance is mainly due to the loss of quality defenders. That had to affect his confidence as well
Trotz is an excellent coach. Can’t do any more than he’s done since arriving in DC. Putting the last 2 playoff losses on him is outrageous.
The Cast still has to be managed and Trotz is one of the top five coaches out there right now. Don’t you think the Red wings thought about moving on from Scotty Bowman before they broke through with their first cup in a coons age? Well no they didn’t because they knew how hard it was to find a top flight coach who can
A) Come up with a game plan that
B) Takes advantage of the personnel talents
and
C) bring out the best in those players while executing that game plan
let’s not forget that Trotz took an expansion Predators team quickly from expansion to respectability to the playoffs as a rookie coach. The Red wing lesson is if the coach is not the problem son’t fire him