Caps Part Ways with Reirden

Three days after a disappointing first-round Stanley Cup Playoff exit in five games at the hands of the New York Islanders, the Capitals announced on Sunday morning that they have relieved Todd Reirden of his head coaching duties. Caps GM Brian MacLellan made the announcement after a Sunday morning meeting with Reirden.

"We have higher expectations for our team, and we felt a fresh approach in leadership was necessary," said MacLellan in a statement. "We would like to thank Todd for all of his hard work and efforts with our organization. Todd has been a big part of our team for more than half a decade, including our Stanley Cup run in 2018, and we wish him and his family all the best moving forward."

A replacement has not yet been named.

"I think we need an experienced coach," says MacLellan in a Sunday afternoon Zoom conference call with media. "We have an experienced group. We need someone that can come in and push some buttons on some players - some good players.

"We're going to try and find the best guy we can. Experience will be a factor, and somebody who can hold people accountable and work within a team concept."

Reirden spent six seasons with the Capitals, the first four as an assistant - and later, associate - coach under Barry Trotz. When Trotz departed for the Islanders shortly after Washington's Cup win in June of 2018, Reirden was the clear and likely heir apparent, and he was named to the post 11 days after Trotz's departure.

In his two seasons at the helm, Reirden led Washington to a pair of division titles and he was the Metropolitan Division's coach both years at the NHL's All-Star Game in both 2019 and 2020. He departs with a regular season coaching mark of 89-46-16, and his .642 points percentage ranks third on Washington's all-time franchise ledger, behind Trotz (.677) and Bruce Boudreau (.655).

Reirden's dismissal puts a disappointing punctuation mark on a season that began amid much hope for a second Stanley Cup title in three years, only to dissolve into a midseason morass of mediocrity from which the Capitals could not extricate themselves. Despite a road-heavy schedule in the first month of the 2019-20 regular season, the Caps roared out of the gates strong last October, following a first-round playoff exit at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes in the spring of 2019.

Fueled by a 7-1-1 road record in the month of October, the Caps owned the League's best record - 26-6-5 - just days before the NHL's annual holiday break last December. But from that point up to the League's mid-March pause, the Caps were middling at best. They posted a 15-14-3 mark over the final 32 games of the regular season.

On July 13, the Caps reconvened for training camp ahead of the NHL's return to play this summer. Given their recent Cup title, the level of experience on the roster, and the continued presence of the team's core players Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, John Carlson and Braden Holtby in Washington, expectations were high all around that the Caps could compete for another Cup.

"Certainly there were some points during the season where we played some pretty good hockey, and those will be some of the things we reference," said Reirden in a July 13 Zoom conference call with media, after the Caps' first full team practice in preparation for the return to play. "Obviously we spent some time looking at areas we were struggling in, going into the break. But again, I have a lot of confidence in those players. Our leadership is so strong in terms of the things that they do in our room and on the ice, and obviously the pedigree that some of them have after having raised the Stanley Cup a couple of years ago.

"I think this time away has definitely reinvigorated our team and they're excited for the opportunity but knowing that there are going to be some curveballs that come our way, there's going to be some adversity, there's going to be some unpredictability, and it's how we deal with those challenges that is going to really decide how our team does."

Asked on July 31 whether he believed the Caps had as good a chance to compete for a Cup in 2020 as they did in 2018 when they won it, MacLellan replied affirmatively.

"I do," he said. "I think we have a lot of the same elements. I think our four lines are well-balanced, and our bottom six should be able to contribute offensively, I think we have a good penalty kill. Holtby has a championship, a Vezina - one of the best goalies in the league. I think all of the elements are there for us to compete for a championship."

That adversity Reirden spoke of came along, sure enough, in the form of injuries to goaltender Ilya Samsonov (before the return to play), Carlson (in the exhibition game ahead of the return to play) and Backstrom (in Game 1 of the series with the Islanders). The Caps were also without center Lars Eller for the final round robin game as well as the series opener against New York.

While the absences of those players - and their diminished capabilities upon returning - certainly didn't help matters, the Caps never looked really right or in synch at any point during the return to play, and they looked much more like the Capitals of January-March than the October-December group. Washington was the league's second-best offensive team during the regular season, and it finished fourth in total number of goals for at 5-on-5, only four off the pace set by Tampa Bay and Toronto. But the Caps' attack was straight up anemic in the return to play.

The bottom six scoring MacLellan alluded to - such a significant part of Washington's Cup run in 2018 - never manifested itself. In eight playoff games - including three round-robin contests - the Caps scored as many as three goals only once, a 3-2 win in Game 4 of the Isles series, a victory that extended their playoff life and delayed their departure from the Toronto bubble for two days.

Washington totaled a mere eight goals in five games against Trotz's Islanders, with just three of them coming at 5-on-5. Only three different Caps - Ovechkin, T.J. Oshie and Evgeny Kuznetsov - were able to light the lamp in that five-game series. Throughout eight playoff games, the Caps were rarely able to display sustained stretches of the dominant, physical attacking brand of hockey that brought them a championship two years ago and that fueled the team's strong start in 2019-20.

"One thing that happened to us in the bubble was our structure didn't seem to be there," says MacLellan. "I know individuals were working hard individually, but a [lack of] team structure was a big cause of our performance in Toronto. So we're going to need someone that can come in and establish that as a big part of our identity. I think teams in our division - Philadelphia has made big strides in that department and New York obviously does the same thing - we're going to have to match that [structure] and the work ethic of those teams, too."

With each member of the Caps' core now in his thirties and with Holtby becoming an unrestricted free agent ahead of next season, there is a great deal of organizational urgency to continue to compete for the Stanley Cup while the team's best players are still at or near the peaks of their respective powers, and a second straight first-round exit proved to mark the end of Reirden's bench tenure in the District. His postseason record as coach was 5-9-1.

"We're a team that wants to compete for a championship every year," reiterates MacLellan. "We have some older players in their thirties that have their best years coming to a close. I think we should be able to compete over the next few years at least, for a Cup or a championship run.

"We're transitioning on [defense] a little bit with some young guys and with a young goaltender coming in. But I think we're injecting some youth also. Ideally we'd like to have a good blend of youth and our core players. That's our hope, to accomplish that, and to play at a high level next year.

In the minutes after the Caps' disappointing early exit from the playoffs last week, Reirden reflected briefly on his team's postseason woes.

"We obviously have had success in the regular season," he said, at the podium after the Game 5 loss, "and winning our division both of the years and doing some things that way, but in these playoff situations we have not been able to play our best hockey. Obviously this scenario is different than last year's with how things were set up, but obviously that's not acceptable. I'm disappointed for the organization, I'm disappointed for the fans - our amazing fans we have in Washington - and for us not being able to get further again this year."

Later on Sunday afternoon, Reirden issued a statement of his own, following his dismissal:

"I want to thank the Washington Capitals organization for allowing me an opportunity to coach this team, our players for their effort and trust, and the fantastic fanbase for their support not only of me but also for my family. While I'm disappointed that we could not bring another championship to DC, I will always cherish my six years with this organization and our memorable run in 2018. I wish this team nothing but success in the future." - Todd Reirden

Like many coaches who preceded him in Washington, Reirden had a great deal of regular season success with the Caps but found the going much tougher in the postseason. Among teams that have been in the NHL continuously since the start of the 1982-83 season when the Caps made the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time, Washington has the third-best regular season record (via points percentage), behind only Boston and Philadelphia. But deep playoff runs have been hard to come by in the District; the Caps have advanced as far as the third round of the playoffs only three times (1990, 1990, 2018) in that span.

It's been nearly two decades now since the last time the Caps suffered consecutive first-round ousters, and within three years of the second of those ousters in 2001, the team was in full on fire sale/rebuild mode. It is seeking to avoid a similar scenario this time around, and if it is to do so, some shoring up of its culture and is in order.

"I think we've had good culture here, and it's starting to slip," says MacLellan. "And I think we need to grab a hold of it and get it back to where it was. I think there needs to be some consistency in our game, and that's with our good players, too. I think we've developed the habit of thinking that we can play good when we have to play good, versus 'Let's develop good habits, and that consistency with our good habits, the games will take care of themselves.'"