Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capital celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal against the St. Louis Blues last week.Jasen Vinlove
For all the years Barry Trotz has coached in the NHL, the one thing he's never understood is why he has to explain the failures of an organization's past. Trotz has been behind the bench of the Washington Capitals for exactly two seasons, during which time they've made the playoffs twice. This year, they went wire-to-wire atop the league standings, and have been anxiously waiting for the start of playoffs for weeks now, with little tangible to play for.
But the Capitals also had the best record in the NHL six years ago, and lost in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs to the Montreal Canadiens thanks to Jaroslav Halak's brilliant goaltending performance.
In the NHL's salary-cap era, there is much talk about windows of opportunity for winning championships. They open for a short time and slam shut faster than you can imagine.
This may well be the Capitals' best chance ever, and yet all Trotz hears about are the sins of the past, particularly 2010. Why, he wonders, should that have any bearing on whether they can win now?
"I'm the coach, so I'll use coaches as an example," Trotz said in an interview.
"I don't care what Bryan Murray's teams did, or Jim Schoenfeld's, or Bruce Boudreau's. It really doesn't matter. This is our team in the moment, and we're trying to make some history of our own, and not worry about the past history. I think we understand that.
"Guys like [off-season pick-up] Justin Williams really help with that. I mean, L.A. never won a Cup in a long time, Chicago didn't win the Cup for a long, long time – and now it seems they're there every year."
"There's a certain mentality you want with your organization and your players," he added, "and once you get to that, then there's nothing else. And as a team, I think, we're getting close to that. That's fantastic. It's about winning. You think you can do it every year, but it's so hard.
"It needs to be part of your DNA."
In Trotz's first year with the Capitals, they finished fourth overall in the Eastern Conference, and lost in seven games to the New York Rangers in the second round. Last summer, general manager Brian MacLellan added Williams from the Kings and T.J. Oshie from the St. Louis Blues to add depth up front.
Two youngsters, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Andre Burakovsky, made major strides in becoming top-six forwards.
Consequently, that eased the pressure on Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom to produce all their offence.
In playoffs past, when the Capitals faced playoff adversity, Ovechkin's response was to go lone-wolf, trying to win games all by himself – impossible to do in a team sport.
Fundamentally, that's the biggest change. Washington is now deep enough to win even on nights when Ovechkin isn't scoring.
This season Ovechkin won the NHL goal-scoring title for the sixth time in his career, but he was only third on the Caps in overall points.
The Caps were second in the league in scoring and second defensively, and their differential between goals for and against was an eye-popping plus-59 – miles ahead of anyone else in the league.
The playoffs are a two-month marathon and lots can happen to change a team's fortunes. Still, Washington seems capable of surviving most obstacles, with depth at every position, including the NHL's winningest goaltender, Braden Holtby, between the pipes.
Williams, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff's most valuable player with Los Angeles in 2014, was a strategic off-season addition, imported to add that one missing ingredient – Cup-winning experience – to the Capitals lineup.
The adjustment, for both him and Oshie, has been relatively seamless, Williams said.
"We knew when we were coming in here, we just wanted to find a role, to fit in some place," Williams said.
"This certainly is not our team. It's Ovie's, it's Backy's, it's Holt's team. But we found a good space in it and a good role, and have been able to fit in good."
Oshie played for a lot of good teams in St. Louis, and in Washington, he's found a home playing mostly on the top line with Ovechkin and Backstrom.
"The adjustment off the ice and in the room was easy and quick," Oshie explained.
"The guys brought me in right away. Everyone gets along, we're all buddies. We all go out to dinners together. We're really close.
"On the ice, the only thing I had to adjust to was new linemates and the systems. The systems took 20 games or so just to get them ingrained. Going into the playoffs, I'm hoping we are at the top of our game, which is what we're trying to get to."
The past couple of weeks were challenging for the Capitals, knowing they had home-ice in the playoffs wrapped up.
The goal was to stay healthy and sharp, not lose the edge that permitted them to run away with the league title.
There is a certain swagger that championship teams such as the Kings and the Blackhawks develop.
Williams believes a similar confidence is building in Washington, too.
"You feel intangible qualities," Williams said, "and confidence and belief are intangible qualities. You can't rank them or outwardly see who has it. You just feel it. This team learned a lot throughout the regular season – about coming back in games, about not getting too up or too down, a lot of things that help come playoff time."