The Washington Capitals are tied for third place in the Metropolitan Division and have a firm grasp of an Eastern Conference wild card spot as we head to the All-Star break.
However, head coach Barry Trotz wasn’t shy about expressing his desire to add veteran forwards for the postseason push. He said the Capitals are a “playoff team that can win,” but added, “We still need a piece or two, I think.”
“We have some guys that are at this level pretty good contributing players, but the playoffs are another level, and I don’t know if some of our guys are ready for that. We’ll see. We’ve still got another 40 games to go, but some guys that looked like they weren’t going to be ready for the first part and they got it turned around. I think we have enough pieces to be a real good threat, but we still, our depth hasn’t been really tested to the point that we need to do that.”
Several young players including second-year 20-year-old Tom Wilson and 19-year-old rookie Andre Burakovsky, have stepped in and played well for Washington, but Trotz thinks more experience is needed.
“That’s something we’re working with, and that’s why you need the young guys to continue to develop and you need to have depth in the organization,” Trotz said. “I think we’re pretty deep on defense as an organization, I think that’s one areas where we’re pretty deep … But at forward we could use a little more, and that’s just waiting for guys to develop. Guys like Burakovsky are coming, guys like Wilson and Kuznetsov and people like that.”
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