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For Barry Trotz and Jon Cooper, the Game Within the Game Begins to Unfold

After a game in D.C. that didn’t go the same way as the two that preceded it, it’s clear that Tampa Bay Jon Cooper went back to the whiteboard and made the necessary adjustments to ice a winning hockey product in Game 3.

Let’s use Muneeb’s head-to-head matrixes to understand a little bit about what changed from Games 1 and 2 to Game 3. Here’s a look at the series’ opening two tilts.

Here’s a tip on reading this: in the above plot, the very first cell represents that Brayden Point faced Lars Eller for under 3 minutes or so, and had an on-ice shot attempt differential of +1 in those minutes.

Now here’s Game 3:

A few key observations:

Obviously coaching adjustments entail more than just skater matchups. X’s and O’s are a huge part of the package, and for Barry Trotz and the Capitals perhaps in no place more important than on the penalty kill. But with three games written into the ledger, the game within the game, as it were, has just begun to unfold, and with a potential Nicklas Backstrom return to the lineup, Barry Trotz could soon have a powerful new chess piece to add to his strategy.

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