POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Isles 2, Caps 0

Toppled From The Top -During his four-year tenure as coach here in Washington, we heard many of Barry Trotz's favorite coaching tenets, and we heard some more than others. Trotz was fond of saying said that teams needed to keep points coming in and they needed to avoid losing streaks, because in a league with so much parity, a bad turn can send you in a southerly direction. "You can't afford to have a bad week," was probably his most frequent way of putting it.

On Friday night at Capital One Arena, Trotz and his new team, the New York Islanders, rolled into Washington and reminded the Caps of exactly that, without saying a single word. The Isles downed the Washington 2-0, toppling the Caps from shared occupancy of the top spot in the Metropolitan Division in the process, and saddling them with their first four-game losing streak in 22 months.
At this time last month, the Caps were in clover, in the midst of a sustained run of success in which they won 16 of 19 games and vaulted themselves into the top spot of the Metro standings.
Now, they've won three of their last 10 games (3-5-2), and they're a point away from being in fourth place in their division.

"There has been a few games where we make a few mistakes," says Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen, "and the other team capitalizes on them. But I think overall we're just not playing well enough and we're not playing hard enough right now. We've just got to dig in and play better."
After the game, Trotz was asked what it means for his team to be in first place at this juncture of the season. And he answered virtually as expected.
"It's fleeting," says Trotz. "This game, in the National Hockey League, you can win seven in a row and then turn around and lose five in a row and the last month that you've been working through that, it's wasted. So you've got to just stay day-to-day here."
Grand Occasion -Prior to Friday night's game, the Caps honored defenseman Brooks Orpik for his 1,000th career NHL game. Orpik reached 1,000 on Monday night against St. Louis, but that game was the front end of a set of back-to-backs with travel, so the Caps honored Orpik on a night in which he would be able to spend time with family, friends and teammates after the game.
Orpik received the two traditional thousand-game gifts, a silver stick from the Capitals and Tiffany crystal from the NHL, and his teammates gave him and his family a trip to Utah. The ceremony included a retrospective video of Orpik's career, from the time he was a fresh-faced teenager at the 2000 NHL Draft in Calgary to when he hoisted the Stanley Cup last June, with man well-wishes from teammates old and current.

Team Turnaround -Back in 2014-15, Trotz took over a Capitals team that missed the playoffs the prior season, leading them to an 11-point improvement in the standings. The Caps finished the 2013-14 season at 21st in the league in goals against, and he and his staff helped spur an improvement to seventh in the league in his first season.
This season, Trotz took over an Islanders team that finished seventh in the Metro with 80 points last season, 17 points south of the final playoff berth. Over the summer, the Islanders also lost star center - and one of the best players in the league - John Tavares to free agency when their longtime captain signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Few would have predicted the Isles' success this season, and Trotz is certainly a frontrunner to win his second Jack Adams Award as the league's top coach.
"We just talk about climbing and it so happened that the Caps were the next team in front of us," says Trotz, whose Islanders have now won 13 of their last 16 to ascend to the top of the division. "Two weeks ago, we talked about teams like Buffalo and Montreal and we just said, 'Let's just keep climbing; don't look up, just keep going.' And the guys have been really good. We've been trying to manage our rest lately because we've had a ton of games, and guys are buying."
In the middle of last March, the Caps faced the Islanders in a home-and-home set when Washington was gearing up for its Stanley Cup run and the Islanders were playing out the string. The Capitals ripped into the Isles for 13 goals in those two games, and many had the sense that as last season came to a close, the Islanders were arguably the easiest team in the league to play against.

That's no longer the case. New York is the league's best defensive team, and it is now a perfect 7-0-0 in the second half of back-to-back games after Friday's win over Washington. The Isles have outscored their foes by a combined 27-6 in the back half of those seven sets of back-to-backs, which is truly remarkable. You'll recall the Caps surrendered seven goals in the back half of their first set of back-to-backs this season, a 7-6 overtime loss to the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Oct. 4.
At the first television timeout of the first period, the Caps aired a stirring video tribute to Trotz, assistant coach Lane Lambert and goaltending director Mitch Korn; all three were with Washington over the last four seasons.
"It was good," says Trotz. "My heart got full of all the good memories. I was looking up there - I was trying not to look too much because I think I was getting pretty close to that sensitive side of myself. But it was extremely well done and it was just great memories and everybody who was a part of something special.
"But it was so well done and I appreciate the Caps for doing that, and including Lane and Mitch in that. It was a special four years we had here, no question."
By The Numbers -John Carlson led the Caps with 24:16 in ice time … Alex Ovechkin, Jakub Vrana and Evgeny Kuznetsov each had three shots on net to lead the Caps, and to account for nearly half (nine of 19) of their total on the night … Ovechkin and Kuznetsov led the Caps with eight shot attempts each … Niskanen and T.J. Oshie led the Capitals with three hits each … Carlson and Jonas Siegenthaler had three blocked shots each to lead the Caps … Lars Eller won seven of 11 draws (64 percent).