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WASHINGTON (AP) Troy Mann’s phone the morning after the Capitals eliminated the Penguins with a patchwork lineup featuring five rookies. It came from Barry Trotz.”Thanks Manner for having all those rookie Caps ready Vincent Trocheck Jersey ,” Trotz wrote. ”They all played well – you own a piece of this win last night.”Mann beamed with pride when more than a half-dozen players he coached with the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears contributed to the victory that got the Capitals into the Eastern Conference final. Many of those players are still playing key roles for Washington in the Stanley Cup Final against the Vegas Golden Knights – more than a month after Mann was fired from his job as Hershey’s head coach.This is a bittersweet time for Mann, who had a hand in the development of Jakub Vrana, Chandler Stephenson and Christian Djoos as coach and was an assistant when Braden Holtby, John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov, Andre Burakovsky, Jay Beagle and Tom Wilson went through Hershey on their way to the NHL. Considering the success of those players and Hershey products Nate Schmidt and Cody Eakin contributing for Vegas, the Cup Final is a validation of Mann’s methods of getting prospects ready for the next level.”I called Troy Mann the other day and thanked him for producing a lot of good players,” Trotz said. ”All the players he had the last couple of years are all playing in the Stanley Cup Finals. Guys who haven’t played a (playoff) game before. They’ve brought some of that winning tradition that they had in Hershey. It’s important for those guys to be a part of it.”Mann has remained connected to the Capitals’ playoff run by talking to Trotz and Hershey video coach Mike King, who’s in Washington. Amid interviews with other organizations for another AHL job or work as an NHL assistant, he has watched about 80 percent of the Capitals’ games this postseason and can see the elements in players’ games he and assistant Ryan Murphy harped on improving during their four-year tenure.After giving Vrana some tough love by scratching him in the playoffs a year ago Adrian Kempe Jersey , Mann notices the 22-year-old winger getting between the faceoff dots to create offense like he asked. He watches Stephenson playing with the consistency that was sometimes lacking in Hershey, which was all part of the plan.”We talked a lot during our time here about what they needed to do at the NHL level to be successful,” Mann said by phone this week. ”The thing we’ve seen the most with our guys is just the improvement level from year to year and month to month.”As much as Mann notices the improvement from afar, the players feel it, too, and credit him for giving them the playing time to grow their games in Hershey, a market that expects championships as much as development.”He just gave us a chance,” said Stephenson, who has seven points in his first Stanley Cup playoffs. ”The type of franchise that Hershey’s been and having so many Calder Cups and things like that, he put a lot of faith in the younger guys and just trusted us. He wanted us to get to the next level more so than you wanted yourself. I really respected him as a coach and liked him as a coach and to have that faith and trust (from) him, it’s helped me a lot.”His support several years ago helped Eakin become a full-time NHL player who said Mann ”knows how to get the most out of his players.” Schmidt http://www.officialislanders.com/authentic-adidas-mathew-barzal-jersey , who had Mann as an assistant and a head coach, appreciated pre-practice skills sessions to work on his hands and stick work and the honesty with which he deals with players.”I thought he was great,” Schmidt said Saturday. ”You always knew where you stood with him. That’s something that I really respect.”But after three playoff appearances including a trip to the Calder Cup Final in 2016, missing the postseason this year led to the Capitals not renewing Mann’s contract.”Troy is a dedicated and hard-working coach, and we appreciate all he has done for the Hershey Bears,” Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan said in a statement. ”At this point, we feel a fresh approach and a change in leadership is needed in order for us to continue to develop our young players towards the next level and for success at the AHL level.”That stung for Mann, who worked eight of the past nine years in the Capitals’ system, made Hershey his home in that time and believed he did his job.”I think it’s very difficult for anybody to tell me that I haven’t done my job here,” Mann said. ”I’m very grateful they gave me my first opportunity. As much as I’d love to be the head coach of Hershey next year, the only thing I can hope for now is that other NHL teams are recognizing the work that we did here and that’ll help pay off in the next few weeks here of securing another opportunity.”Mann was a finalist for one job already and is in demand as Ottawa http://www.officialislanders.com/authentic-adidas-nick-leddy-jersey , Arizona and Colorado all look to fill AHL head-coaching vacancies. He has a big supporter in Trotz, who said recently the Capitals wouldn’t be Eastern Conference champions without Mann and Murphy helping develop Stephenson, Vrana, Djoos, Nathan Walker, Travis Boyd and Madison Bowey.”They did a really good job,” Trotz said. ”They’ve developed well, and they’ve been a big part of it.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals— Two teams coming off disappointing losses meet Wednesday, and both are trying to figure things out on special teams.The Montreal Canadiens can’t seem to score on the power play and suddenly the Colorado Avalanche are struggling to consistently kill penalties. Something has to give when the teams play at Pepsi Center in Denver on Wednesday night.Montreal (17-12-5) lost to Boston 4-0 on Monday night in a game right winger Brendan Gallagher called “one of the worst of my career” afterward. The Canadiens had won six of their previous eight games, they were rested but were outshot 35-22 by a Bruins team playing the second of back-to-back games.Article continues below ...Every team has off nights but Montreal has had a season-long struggle of scoring with the man advantage. The Canadiens haven’t had a power-play goal in their last 25 chances and have only scored 14 all season.“It’s just the little things,” Gallagher told Sportsnet after Monday’s loss. “We have to win puck battles. It’s not a strategic problem. It’s just work ethic Nick Foligno Jersey , compete. We have to find a way to get the puck. We didn’t have enough control of the puck in the zone to put into practice anything that we’ve worked on or talked about. It’s as simple as that. It’s not strategic.”Colorado’s issues might be more strategic than anything. The Avalanche were one of the top penalty-killing teams in the first two months but have struggled lately. They have allowed at least one power-play goal in six of the last seven games, including two to the New York Islanders on Monday.Colorado (18-10-6) has gone 1-3-1 in its last five games and has allowed seven power-play goals in that stretch.“It looks to me like we’re just not as quick as we were earlier,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said after Monday’s loss. “We had some problems with clears for a while but that wasn’t a problem tonight. They score on a flank shot. We’re not blocking enough shots; we’re not in the shooting lanes enough. That’s two of the last three that have come from the flank on one-timers. We’re taking too many penalties, too.”Coaches claim the goaltender is the team’s best penalty killer and the Avalanche haven’t gotten that from No. 1 stopper Semyon Varlamov. He has allowed 21 goals in his last five starts and was pulled from two of those games.His goals-against average over the last five games is 5.32, but he won’t get the chance to improve on that Wednesday. Philipp Grubauer will start in net against Montreal.Colorado is also expected to get back forward Alexander Kerfoot after a four-game absence with an upper-body injury.“It looks like he should be good to play,” Bednar told hockeybuzz.com after Tuesday’s practice. “I just have to get confirmation (from the medical staff) that he’s in for sure.”The Canadiens made a roster move ahead of their six-game road trip with the recall of 20-year-old defenseman Victor Mete. Mete played 23 games before being sent to the AHL to build his confidence after some struggles.Montreal sent Noah Juulsen down to make room for Mete.