Three Reasons The Washington Capitals Fired Todd Reirden
Three reasons why Todd Reirden was fired by the Washington Capitals.
We are just hours removed from the Washington Capitals making the decision known to the public that they had relieved Todd Reirden from his head coaching duties. If you follow the hockey world then this is the farthest thing from shocking. I would say it’s rare that the writing on the wall was this clear and this bold. Still, stranger things have happened and it wasn’t a sure thing Reirden would be let go.
In my opinion, there were plenty of reasons why Reirden was fired. Some of these reasons were clear to everybody, other reasons I’m sure smarter people than me can point to and give you better explanations. Here are three reasons why the Capitals decided to make a change at the head coaching position.
Bad Results
This is an oversimplified reason perhaps and maybe a bit of a DUH! reason. That doesn’t make it any less true though. As a head coach it’s your job to get the most out of your team and Reirden failed to do that as head coach of the Capitals.
This is a team that was coming off its first Stanley Cup in franchise history. Most of the team was the same for the next season, there was not too many changes. Yet this team got knocked out in the first round.
To be a little fair here, this past season there was more change. Brooks Orpik was gone, Matt Niskanen was traded, Burakovsky is gone, Connolly is no longer here. There was definitely more change for the 2019-20 season than the 2018-19 season. But lets be real. It’s not like this team got that much worse, at least in terms of talent. This is still a very, very good team when looking at the lineup.
This very talented team just got embarrassed in the first round of the playoffs. Again, smarter hockey people than me will be able to break this down way better than me using X’s and O’s and things like that. All I’m here to do is tell you why Reirden has been fired.
It’s a coaches job to get results. This is a very good team, I don’t really care who or how many people would say otherwise. This very good team just severely underachieved for two straight seasons, wasting more years of the Ovechkin, Backstrom, Carlson and Holtby era.
At least until recently, head coaches were judged solely on the results. The results Reirden gave were not even close to acceptable. And here we are.
Poor Effort
I’ve gone back and forth on trying to decide if the poor effort was the coaches fault or not. I tend to believe that is on the players. If winning the Stanley Cup can’t get you motivated I’m not sure why you’re here. Motivation has to come from within.
But whether that is true or not the head coach will take the blame for it. Rightly so if you ask me. If you consistently see you’re team is lackadaisical you have got to do something to fire them up. That has really been the problem with this team for the past two seasons.
When talking about the playoff exits, in both instances, a huge reason for the Caps getting knocked out is effort. Both times you saw the Hurricanes and the Islanders play and work hard. The Capitals played and worked hard at times. Way more times in the Carolina series. In the Islanders series I think you could honestly say, in the five game series the Capitals gave a good effort for maybe sixty minutes, total. That was parts of game one and the majority of game four.
How? Honestly, it’s something that leaves me speechless. I utterly don’t understand how a team that has proven to the world and even themselves that when they work hard they are possibly the best hockey team on the planet. This team rarely worked hard. Not everyone gave the minimum effort, but the vast majority did.
And this was not just a playoff issue. That’s just when the issue is at its worst. This was for at least the entire 2019-20 season. This team would consistently play maybe half a game and walk away winners most nights because of their talent.
Everyone would gawk and be in awe of the Capitals ability to come from behind and tie games when playing with an empty net. Meanwhile, my thought has been if they gave a consistent sixty minute effort they wouldn’t be behind. On top of that, great teams don’t give up leads in the playoffs. You can pick on the bad teams in the regular season.
You can pick on the New Jersey Devils when you fall behind. They are a bad team and have to be in Pittsburgh to play the Penguins the next night. The Devils are not the Islanders and the Islanders have nothing else to do but focus in on you, especially these days.
I can say in all certainty, if the Capitals just gave the required amount of effort we would not be sitting here. We saw how good they were and how they dominated New York when they gave 100% effort. That’s not to say the Caps didn’t have other issues this series, because they did. But to me, effort is the number one reason why they have had two awful postseasons in a row.
Defense
This was a question we had for the Capitals all season long. How good was this defense? Were they good enough and could they handle pressure from the hard working teams. This, combined with the effort we just talked about proved to be a big reason why the Capitals lost.
It’s not like the Capitals gave up 25 goals in 5 games. They weren’t giving up 5 goals a game, that’s not what I mean by saying the defense wasn’t good enough. Overall, I just though the defense had trouble dealing with the Islanders pressure and that was a concern I’ve had with this team all season.
If you want proof of the defense having trouble in the Islanders series just look at high danger attempts allowed. Despite playing in at least one fewer game than the teams around them the Capitals gave up the sixth most high danger attempts. Washington gave up 74 high danger attempts. To compare, the Montreal Canadiens gave up 70 high danger attempts. The Caps played in 8 playoff games, the Canadiens played in 10.
The St. Louis Blues and Hurricanes both played in 8 playoff games as well. The Blues gave up 59 high danger attempts, the Hurricanes gave up 61.
Washington was just not good enough defensively and were unable to keep teams from getting to those high danger areas.
That could possibly be more damning for Reirden considering he was thought of as more of a defensive guy. He was in charge of the defense before he took over head coaching duties. You would think a coach known for working with the defense would have a defensively solid team.
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This season the Capitals gave up 3.07 goals against per game. That was the 18th most in the regular season. Defense wasn’t a problem that crept up in the playoffs. This was a season long issue, and it hurt Reirden and the Capitals when it mattered most.