Andre Burakovsky wasn’t calling for the puck during games. He knew he was in the middle of a lengthy goal drought, and in the few shifts he was getting, his focus was just on not making a mistake. He started to worry that the Washington Capitals would reassign him to the minors.
“I told him the opposite, that, ‘I’m not going to send you down,’ ” Capitals Coach Barry Trotz said. “ ‘I’m not going to do this. You figure this out.’ ”
Solving a slump on his own got harder when every game the 20-year-old left wing didn’t score, his confidence took a hit, enough that he didn’t ask his teammates to feed him the puck like he had as a rookie a year ago.