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It takes a lot to make Todd Reirden angry.
As for coaches, Reirden is the opposite of John Tortorella, for example, and tends to stay relatively calm in games and against the media. If he has a problem with his team, he takes it in camera.
When the team came home Friday after a careless defeat to the Montreal Canadiens, Reirden did not hesitate to say how unhappy he was with the team's defensive efforts.
"You do not have to go back and play in the defense zone when you want to properly handle the puck," Reirden said. "If you want to put the puck in the offensive zone and place it under the goal line when you are leading a game, you do not really need to worry about your defensive zone. But if you do not want to handle it properly and try your luck one way or the other, then you ask to be put in difficult situations. "
Reirden had a very different tone after Monday's 4-2 win, when the Capitals effectively ended Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers' mission.
"I thought they were doing a good job [with their] sticks, get in the hallways the best we could and tie sticks around the net, "said Reirden.
The defense has recently been a topic of conversation given the porosity of the Caps this season. As Monday's game approached, they allowed 3.83 goals per game, which led Reirden to lament the defensive efforts of the team.
Given the way they played in Monday's game, it seemed like the team finally understood the message.
"We really talked about the team's defense," TJ Oshie said, "And get the things that have given us success in the past, far from the puck and sometimes with the puck, in our game. So everyone comes back and stops at home, as we call it, in front of the net there defensively, then diversifies from there.
"We have been a little loose on our side," said Devante Smith-Pelly. "So we wanted to tighten our bonds, and we know precisely with [Connor McDavid] there and [Leon Draisaitl] and these guys we had no choice or they charged us. So we did a good job.
Edmonton is not a particularly strong offensive team, but their top-six is among the best in the NHL, especially with McDavid, arguably the best player in the world at the center of the front row. The Oilers have presented an interesting challenge to Washington because of the number of minutes their top six strikers play.
McDavid, Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins all played over 21 minutes on Monday.
"They play their top six as many minutes," Reirden said. "It's a tough game and many difficult minutes, especially for our top four defensemen."
To slow down this attack, Reirden tied Edmonton's finish line with Nicklas Backstrom's, but also tweaked that line to include Chandler Stephenson on the wing.
"I wanted to have Stephenson out there because he was skating well, he paid the price by blocking shots and getting opportunities," Reirden said. "He was also strong in punishment, he used it at the end of the match, so I thought it was one of his best games of the year so you asked me. "
But the main difference for Washington on Monday was a defensive commitment that had been missing from the team for a good part of the season.
The key word of Washington's defense is commitment. The team must commit to entering the firing lanes and blocking fire. He must engage in physical battles in front of the net and box these attackers.
This is the kind of commitment the team has on Monday.
"It's important for us to be able to enter these firing lanes and you see that it has begun to affect their offensive play," Reirden said. "Their defensemen are taking the advantage and instead of putting it in the net now because we are in the shooting line, they start to come out of the yellow and get back and play games that are not directly to our net. This helps to ease some tension around our net. "
Pheonix Copley, who started on Monday, certainly appreciated the team's efforts in front of him.
"They blocked a lot of shots, they kept a lot outside," he said. "We had talked a lot about it and I thought that they had played very well and made my job much easier."
The type of engagement on which Caps' defense is based is easy to find in Stanley's playoffs. It's much harder to convince a team to sell in November.
But there was a stark contrast between the team's defensive effort on Monday and the way they played in the defeats in Montreal and Dallas. Will that be enough to convince the team that they need to have this level of engagement on a regular basis?
Reirden said, "Good commitment on the part of our great attackers and [that’s] something that must be consistent with us here to go from the front. "
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