Dein erstes Forum » Pakistan have rarely had it this g

ARLINGTON, Va. -- ?? Barring a complete collapse, nothing the Washington Capitals do from the time the puck drops on the 2016-17 season until April will mean much of anything in the long run.Over the past nine seasons, there have been plenty of trophies: three for Alex Ovechkin as MVP and six for the most goals, one for Braden Holtby as top goaltender, one each for Bruce Boudreau and Barry Trotz as coach of the year and two Presidents Trophies for the team having the most points in the regular season. Eight times the Capitals have made the playoffs and eight times theyve failed to make it past the second round.The Stanley Cup is still very much within reach, especially with Ovechkin, Holtby and centers Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov in the prime of their careers. But with key players Karl Alzner, Justin Williams and T.J. Oshie eligible for unrestricted free agency next summer, the salary cap hanging over their heads and the uncertainty that follows, this is arguably the Capitals last, best chance to win the championship they looked to be building toward for more than a decade.When you get older, then the more think about that a little more, Alzner said. I would love to just win so you can stop worrying about getting that win.Last spring, after dominating the NHL for 82 games, the Capitals beat the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round before falling in six games to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. Ovechkin, who just turned 31 and has led the league in goals for four consecutive seasons, brushed it off as, Last year is last year, though the sting of that loss stuck with players through the summer.Back at the rink for training camp, it was hard to deny a desire to fast-forward several months. But another first-in-the-NHL finish guarantees nothing, as the Capitals know all too well.Itd be nice to just jump back into June or May and say, OK, lets have another crack at it, but thats not the way it works, right winger Tom Wilson said. The tough part is the 82-game season: getting yourself into the position to have success, and then when youre there, to have success at the right time.After the Capitals played their best hockey early and midseason and the Penguins hit their stride for the stretch run and the playoffs, center Jay Beagle thought a lot about peaking at the right time. If he and his teammates learned any lesson from last season its that they need to be at their best at playoff time, something that hasnt been the case so far.The playoffs is about scoring big goals at big times, said Williams, who won the Cup twice with the Los Angeles Kings. The margin of errors very small. You dont want to be asking yourself why things didnt go right. ... You want to be asking yourself why it went right. We have a chip on our shoulder and we have a point to prove to everybody.Here are some other things to watch with the Capitals this season:HOLT-BEAST MODEHoltby, the reigning Vezina Trophy winner, started 66 games last season and 72 in 2014-15. Expect him to play less and backup Philipp Grubauer more as Trotz, goalie coach Mitch Korn and the Capitals reduce Holtbys workload so he peaks for the playoffs like the New York Rangers did with Henrik Lundqvist a few years ago.CONSISTENT KUZNETSOVEven though he led Washington with 77 points and was an All-Star, Kuznetsov had just one goal and 12 assists in his final 31 games, including the playoffs, and must show better endurance over a long season. The 24-year-old Russian is due a big raise as a restricted free agent and can prove hes an elite player.BLUE LINE DEPTHAlzner, John Carlson and Matt Niskanen are Washingtons top three defensemen and then theres a drop off. Brooks Orpik is 36 and better in a third-pairing role, so the Capitals may count on Dmitry Orlov making the leap and taking on more responsibilities.NOTHING REGULARBackstrom chaffed at Presidents Trophy talk late last season after winning it in 2009 preceded a first-round exit. After winning it again last year, its not like the Capitals want to lose more games, but the balance between going hard in the regular season and pacing themselves warrants monitoring to see how it affects their place in the standings.ELLER, ELLER, ELLERAcquiring Lars Eller from Montreal gives Washington a solid third-line center behind Backstrom and Kuznetsov and could make it look more like Pittsburghs top-nine forward group. The Capitals didnt copycat the Penguins in many ways, but they want to have three scoring lines, and Eller is a big key to that happening.---Follow Stephen Whyno on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SWhynoSaucony Outlet Italia . Marincin has played in two NHL games so far this season with two penalty minutes. The 21-year-old has three goals, four assists and a plus-5 rating in 24 games with the American Hockey Leagues Oklahoma City Barons this season. Air Max 90 Off White Saldi . Ouellette, from Montreal, already has three Olympic gold medals since joining the team in 1999. http://www.outletscarpesaldi.it/balenciaga-prezzo-basso.html . Instead of dwelling on the negative, Oates focused on what was good about the clubs recent play. It worked. Air Max 720 Donna Scontate . But what about the officials? Every sport has officials and they also have stories about hard work and sacrifice but their accomplishments are seldom recognized by anyone outside their inner circle. Scarpe Outlet Italia . The judges scored it 48-47, 48-47, 49-46 for Jones (19-1). It was the champions closest call. Despite the loss, it was a remarkable show by the confident Swedish challenger, who had the best of the early rounds and then hung on in the fourth and fifth.As history begins to repeat itself, it is the familiarity that connects the dots. On the morning of the second day of the Test at Hagley Oval, as all the work that Pakistans openers had done was frittered away, it was that feeling of familiarity that was most obvious.For Pakistanis of a certain generation, tours to the antipodes are tied in to memories that are easily evoked - of godforsaken hours on wintry nights, of hope springing eternal, and of batsmen struggling to cope with alien conditions. It is often said that Pakistans worship of bowling, particularly the faster kind, has to do with the number of great fast bowlers the country has produced. But at times like this, one often feels that its the fact that the bowlers have delivered great wins in spite of the incompetence of the batsmen that leads to them being treated as higher beings.Pakistan havent lost a Test series to New Zealand in three decades. Even their last series loss there came about in a match that Wasim Akram got his first ten-for in, in the great tradition of bowlers trying to cover up for the incompetence of batsmen.Despite this record, its not as if Pakistani batsmen have conquered New Zealand. Pakistan went to New Zealand three times in the 1990s: in each instance, in their first Test innings of the tour, they were bowled out for under 220. Across the Tasman, where Pakistan will go in a fortnights time, their record is worse: in their first Test innings on five of their last eight tours to Australia, they have been bowled out for under 180.It was supposed to be different this time around - the success of Pakistani batsmen over the last three years, including on the tour to England, had promised more. But the days leading up to this tour will have set the alarm bells ringing. Pakistan lost a Test to West Indies, and the explanations for that seemed to raise more questions than answers. The first was that the team already had their minds on the series to come. The second was that mental and physical fatigue was a factor, as there had been just two weeks between a three-month long tour of England and the six weeks of the West Indies series in the UAE - which, despite its familiarity, still is a tour away from home for the players - and that this had affected them. The fact that these explanations came from the coach, Mickey Arthur, seemed to raise questions about his own performance, for arent these the things that he is supposed to be in control of? The final explanation, as seems to have been the case in every home series over the past couple of years, was that Pakistan didnt get the pitches they wanted (Arthur, in fact, referenced how Pakistan ought to be able to get the sort of pitches Bangladesh or India have for their home Tests), which again raises questions about the board and the team management, and what control they have over these home Tests.As the excuses piled up, and then Pakistans only warm-up game was wwashed out, the writing seemed to be on the wall.dddddddddddd The last time Pakistan had a difficult away tour without any real preparation, they were bowled out for 49 by South Africa in their first innings there. Yet it wasnt in the first innings that Pakistan lost this Test match in New Zealand. Top-order collapses, as mentioned earlier, have always been a part of Pakistans away tours. What they lacked here was a failure to learn from the first innings. Having seen their approach to prolonging innings without shifting gears fail in the first innings, Pakistan doubled down on it in the second. Australia had just shown why even the opposite of doing what Pakistan did can fail. If there is any lesson to learn from this, or from this year in general, its that extremism towards any single approach is not exactly ideal.At least that is something Pakistan can work upon, even if they will badly miss Misbah-ul-Haq in the middle order. What they cant work on - and this is something that continues to affect them - is their tail.As pitches have in general gone from the homogenisation of the last decade to getting back to their true selves over the past few years, home teams have become more dominant, but there has also been another trend: the strength of teams lower-order batting can make or break games. Englands successes over the past 12 months might have more to do with their lower order than their middle order, for instance. Australias decline from the heights of the 2013-14 Ashes has a lot to do with their lower orders failings too.This year has been seen as an improvement for Pakistans tail - the Oval Test being held up as an example. Yet despite that match, and despite Sohail Khans efforts in New Zealand, Pakistan are one of only three teams whose last four batsmen (Nos. 8-11) have averaged under 15 this year. (This is still an upgrade on the rest of the decade, where Pakistan have competed with Zimbabwe for the wooden spoon.)And yet, for all these problems, Pakistan have rarely had it this good. In the history of the country, only four times have they gone more than five Test series without losing one, only three times have they done so with a streak as long as seven series. The first of those three was from 1985 to 1989, when Pakistan went ten series without losing, as Javed and Imran built the greatest team in Pakistans history. That streak ended on a tour down under, where Pakistans top five averaged 25 at a combined run rate of under 2.3. The second streak followed the spot-fixing scandal, and ended with a series where Misbah was banned from a Test because of slow over rates. The third is right now, Pakistan havent lost a series in seven - but with Misbah missing and the batsmen following the template of their ancestors, history might be ready to repeat itself. ' ' '