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Trotz doesn’t want the Caps to ‘crawl up in a corner and feel sorry’ for themselves

Barry Trotz

Washington Capitals head coach Barry Trotz looks on against the Colorado Avalanche in the first period of an NHL hockey game in Denver on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

AP

Hey, remember back when Bruce Boudreau was still the Capitals’ coach and he went on that famous rant about “a bunch of guys” who “look so [expletive] down when something bad happens” before ending the tirade with, “Surely to [expletive] we can deal with this”?

Well, current Caps coach Barry Trotz didn’t use those same words exactly, but his message was similar in the wake of Washington’s third loss in four outings, a 6-2 drubbing at the hands of the Maple Leafs on Saturday.

“The worst thing is to crawl up in a corner and feel sorry for yourself,” Trotz said, per the Washington Post. “That gets old pretty quick, too, and that doesn’t do you any good. When things get tough, we always say the fight in the dog, you’ve got to have fight. We’re learning that.”

The Caps got off to a promising start this season, coming out of the gates with a 4-1-2 record. But they’ve since gone 6-8-2, dropping two points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

“Personally, I think it should light a fire,” veteran Brooks Laich said of the loss to Toronto, per CSN Washington. “We’ve got to start climbing. Everybody wins a couple games here and there, that’s just treading water. We need to win six, seven, eight in a row to climb above teams and then we need to do it again to give yourself some space. ... Just being mediocre is not acceptable for this group.”

The Caps host Vancouver Tuesday before heading out on a three-game road trip to Carolina, New Jersey and Tampa Bay.

Based on the following video, it’s safe to assume that, going forward, Trotz would like to see a better performance out of his goaltender than what he saw Saturday.