I'd rather be good in the first period than wear a team down in the third.

Can't hold a team off if you don't get a lead

this comment sucks

I don’t hate this tbh. The caps are awful at faceoffs and this would help but I think they would struggle to score and struggle with possession

How?

I'm not joking when I say you can't hold someone off (in the 3rd period) if you don't get off to a good start (in the 1st period). Or do you just not get it?

It's a fair point. I messed around with the above lines until I thought they were each pretty good, and I wouldn't worry about sending them out against anybody. Instead I'd let the other team freak out, shorten its own bench, and end up stressing out its good players until they made mistakes. But maybe it depends on the opponent, and against some other really stacked teams, you'd want to stick to a more traditional setup until you were up by a goal, go to a three line spread until you're up two, and then go to four to give the struggling guys or the new guys some experience and mentorship.

I hope the worst thing about the lines I ended up with would be trying to re-sign Stephenson after his forty point second half.

I think he was confused because I used the wrong than. I used then instead of than, so try plugging that in and it makes sense actually on his part

Faceoffs are important sure...but Caps biggest issue is the awful defense this year. Orlov makes mistakes and is not scoring. Carlson is a mistake machine and is only benefitting from assists. Niskanen looks 400 years old all of a sudden. Bowey is god awful. Siegenthaler has been decent but is finding him NHL game. Djoos (hurt). Kempny is the only guy competing out there night after night. Orpik also old and slow and mostly hurt this year.

Hopefully they'll get it back together. I think a lot of years, a lot of great players mentally start their vacations a bit early before the all star break. If all of our bosses judged us by our work at 3PM on Fridays, we'd have had a lot more bosses.