Thoughts on Trotz and Sitting Younger Players

If there’s one thing that’s become apparent early in Barry Trotz’s tenure as coach of the Washington Capitals, it’s that he has a propensity to sit younger players. The most notable example is 19-year old rookie center Andre Burakovsky, who has barely seen NHL ice in December, which has caused a mini controversy in D.C. hockey circles.

On Saturday night, Trotz surprised fans yet again by sitting upstart defenseman Nate Schmidt in favor of veteran Jack Hillen on the third pairing with Mike Green. Schmidt has been somewhat of a revelation this season, posting great possession stats and helping contribute to the overall improvement of the team’s defensive corps.

Alex Prewitt initially reported on this over the weekend (bolded sentence is my own emphasis):

Through 31 games, two more than he logged last season after cracking the club as an undrafted free agent, Schmidt ranked fourth among Washington’s regulars with 53.4 percent of total shot attempts going his favor at even strength, driving possession with Green against weaker competition with heavy offensive zone starts.But Trotz found recent fault in Schmidt who, in his words, “has had a big miscue which has cost us a goal or it’s led to untimely penalties and stuff by creating some stuff.” Over Schmidt’s first 24 games, he logged less than 12 minutes only twice; over the past seven games, it’s happened six times.

Many will recall that Trotz had similar quotes about Burakovsky before essentially burying him on the 4th line then relegating him to the press box and finally a stint in Hershey last week. This has become somewhat of a hot-button issue, especially after Trotz handled Filip Forsberg in similar fashion with the Predators last year, and look what he’s doing now under a new coach.

Should we be concerned about the way Trotz develops and manages young, gifted skaters?

My issue with Trotz’s handling of the Burakovsky situation is that he hasn’t been given a chance to earn his ice time back, and the second line is largely a non-factor at even strength without him on it. At what point does he get a shot to prove himself on the ice with non-fourth liners?

On the other hand, let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. Taking the Schmidt example a step further, Schmidt is putting up solid possession numbers, even throughout this recent stretch of games where he has supposedly struggled. Because of that, it’s hard to comprehend why sitting him in the press box improves the team.

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The fact of the matter is that we have limited information to work with as fans. We have possession stats, we have raw point totals and plus/minus, and we have basic observations from TV cameras that kind-of-but-not-really inform us. The coaches and upper management have a hundred times the amount of information that we do and are parsing through every millisecond of video.

We also don’t know what conversations are happening behind closed doors. Maybe the coaching staff has been telling Schmidt that he has to stop making X or Y mistake, and he has continued to make those mistakes. What is a coach’s next move in that case? Should he simply go “well, his corsi is still pretty awesome so I say we keep giving him the minutes”?

Or, should a coach reprimand that player with the only weapon he has – reducing his ice time? Haven’t we been searching for that type of accountability here for years now?

Let’s also be fair to Trotz – he hasn’t just disciplined the younger players – veterans Jason Chimera, Joel Ward and Eric Fehr have all eaten nachos in the press box as healthy scratches this season but are back to being lineup regulars. It would be unfair to say he’s only holding younger players accountable.

Finally, there is something to be said for preserving players in their first full season as they try to make the leap from juniors or the AHL to the NHL. The 82-game NHL season is an absolute grind. Trotz seems to be very conscious of keeping players fresh for March and April. From that same Prewitt article:

“Sometimes with a young player, the grind of the NHL season eats you up,” Trotz said. “That’s why guys are such good pros when guys are really consistent. That’s a little bit of a learning curve. For him it’s a little bit of a reset too, just as we want to do with [Burakovsky] and a few other guys. We felt that Jack was deserving to go back in.”

Many of us want to see Burakovsky back in the lineup soon, and most fans would probably agree that Schmidt has been an awesome sixth defenseman and should be given every chance to regain that spot. Before we jump to conclusions, let’s see how Trotz handles his development and Burakovsky’s in the coming weeks. Maybe he knows what he’s doing.