Capitals veteran forward Mike Knuble issued some harsh words following his team’s ugly 5-2 loss to the Dallas Stars at Verizon Center on Tuesday night. Check out our game story for the major details. Needless to say, the effort wasn’t there at all and a good team took full advantage of it.
I want to give as much context as possible to these quotes. Knuble never singled out a teammate. His tone was more of a collective disgust with everyone, himself included. He was clearly steamed, but never raised his voice answering reporters’ questions. But he didn’t mince words. Asked about the Caps’ play in their own end – how they had committed to that end of the rink last year and found success and at least recently appear to be sliding backwards – Knuble paused before answering. Here’s what he said in full:
“Defense takes urgency. Urgency in your play and it takes urgency in your mindset coming into the game. And I don’t know if it’s because it’s November and there’s not that urgency yet. Nobody’s really under the gun at all. I feel like the season’s early. [Twelve] games in, you know, you haven’t played that many games. But if that’s the case maybe a little bit more defensive urgency. Because last year we were under the gun when we started playing well defensively [in mid-December]. Everybody made the commitment to play hard. They’re not scoring, like, ugly goals either. They’re snapping it around, backdoor play, goalie not even in the net. They make you look bad. It’s like, embarrassing when you’re on the ice and guys are beating you. The other night [against the New York Islanders] get beat 1-on-4. Just playing like a bunch of losers. You’re going to lose if you play like that. You’re going to lose every night in the league – let alone talking about playoffs and all that. You’ll lose every night in the league. And I think we all went through that last year.”
So some obvious frustration. And reminiscent of Knuble’s quotes last Feb. 12 after a 4-1 home loss to the Los Angeles Kings. That came late in what became a 7-7-5 stretch following the Winter Classic where it appeared Washington was on the verge of imploding again after crawling out of the hole dug by the eight-game winless streak in December. The Caps were about to head out on a five-game road trip – the first three games at Phoenix, Anaheim and San Jose, who all ended up making the playoffs last season. They also had to hit Buffalo and Pittsburgh on the way back home – two more eventual playoff teams. With a 29-17-10 record and 68 standings points, Washington found itself five points behind Tampa Bay (34-17-5, 73 points) in the Southeast Division. There was a sense of urgency to Knuble’s words then. No one wants to go through that again and so his words took a similar tone after Tuesday’s loss. No one wants to let this sudden four losses in six games skid really get rolling in the wrong direction. Hence, harsh words in November instead of February. More Knuble on that sense of urgency now:
“Yeah. Yeah. You practice it. But it just doesn’t happen. It takes a commitment. We practice it and practice it. You can’t say we’re not prepared. We know what we’re doing. We talk about it and watch film about it. And then it’s just the commitment to doing it on the ice. Maybe through the first five games I felt top to bottom it was a better commitment. Of late I don’t know if we’re all committed. It’s sad to say and we all look bad because of the result. We look great when we’re all committing. We look all like a bunch of clowns when we don’t. Very average team when we’re not all committing.”
Can’t add much more to that. Should be an interesting few days of practice as the Caps prepare for a weekend of back-to-back games with the New Jersey Devils.
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