Washington success a result of Capital offense

Sporting News, The, Nov 3, 1997 by Larry Wigge

Facing the prospect of their team playing eight of its first 11 games on the road, most Capitals fans were expecting another of those typically bad starts. Surprise! Surprise! The 7-3-1 Capitals rank as one of the top stories of the young season and have shed their label of predictability.

The Capitals always have been a good, one-dimensional team built around defense. They usually have been just good enough to qualify for the playoffs and lose in the first round. But there's an air of freshness about this group that transcends normal expectations, and it can be attributed directly to new coach Ron Wilson.

When Wilson coached Anaheim, critics made fun of him for reading from The Wizard of Oz and using other sleight-of-hand tricks to get something out of a Mighty Ducks team that, in all honesty, didn't have much talent beyond Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne. Wilson does not need those tricks in Washington, where he has found players drooling over the opportunity to be creative after years of being restrained in the boring defense-first system of former coach Jim Schoenfeld.

"Everything seems to work now," center Joe Juneau says with a confidence that wasn't there before. "Last year, guys weren't allowed to do their things. They had to play a certain way even if it didn't fit into their style. There were times when it was hard to tell the first line from the fourth line."

"Sometimes it felt like the ice was always tilted toward our goal," says Adam Oates, a 1,000 point center who knows a little something about offense. "When you are always in your own zone, I don't care how good the defense is, eventually the other team is going to score."

The Capitals are venturing out of their zone regularly now, and they're averaging about two goals a game more than in recent years. In the past, they would fight to get a lead and sit on it. This year, they are striking early and building on it.

"They had one of the best goals-against averages in the history of the franchise, and they didn't make the playoffs," Wilson says. "If we can score a half goal more a game, it's going to make all the difference in the world.

"I always thought the Capitals had speed. They didn't play an up-tempo game. My style has a lot more movement and is less static than they played."

In Anaheim, Wilson built his offense around speedy wingers Kariya and Selanne. That should bode well for Peter Bondra, one of the league's fastest skaters, as well as playmakers Juneau and Oates.

"When you have Adam Oates and Joe Juneau playing trap, I don't think you're using their strengths," says winger Chris Simon, who was a Schoenfeld supporter. "It wasn't that coach Shoenfeld wasn't trying, but those guys are so happy now that they are playing their game."

Defensively, the Capitals are as strong as ever. Only Dallas can claim a better top-to-bottom defense than Mark Tinordi, Sergei Gonchar, Sylvain Cote, Calle Johansson, Joe Reekie, Phil Housley and youngster Brendan Witt.

But the Capitals are beginning to grab equal attention up front. They have Oates, one of the league's most underrated playmakers; Bondra, one of the league's best goal scorers; Michal Pivonka, another proven scorer; and Juneau, a former 100-point man. Steve Konowalchuk is one of those 110 percent effort guys with a pretty good goal-scoring touch. And if things get static, there are three hungry, talented young Czechs--Jan Bulis, Richard Zednik and Jaroslav Svejkovsky.

Dale Hunter and Kelly Miller have been the heart and soul of this team for a lot of years and still play key roles. Simon is around to provide toughness and Bill Ranford and Olaf Kolzig are steady in goal.

There still might be skeptics, but not me. And after the Capitals face off against the Flyers at home Friday and at New Jersey on Saturday, other doubters will begin to believe in this team and its coach.

"You used to be able to focus on shutting down Juneau and Bondra and that pretty well shut down the whole team, but now they can put together four pretty good lines with Juneau, Oates, Bulis and Hunter," Devils defenseman Scott Stevens says. "They are going to be a handful to stop all season."

Surprises Part II

It may surprise many to see the Capitals, Blues, Penguins, Senators and Bruins among the league's top teams 10 games into the season--but it shouldn't

Success begins with a bright coach and a solid system and each of those teams is rebuilding on that foundation.

Ron Wilson, Joel Quenneville, Kevin Constantine, Jacques Martin and Pat Burns teach discipline while leaving room for creativity.

The talent for choosing the right general manager/coach combination, people who can work together like Ron Wolf and Mike Holmgren do so well with the Green Bay Packers, is necessary for a successful team. Too often, coaches are selected for all the wrong reasons and eventually are hung out to dry.

Before the season, we predicted there would be coaching changes in Tampa, Carolina and Toronto by Christmas. The timetable, however, has been pushed up with the firing of Lightning coach Terry Crisp.