Brouwer not happy.

Washington Capitals forward Troy Brouwer was disgusted after the team’s 5-1 shellacking to the Colorado Avalanche. The Capitals have lost four of their first five games and if you ask Brouwer, the losing has nothing to do with the team’s talent level. Brouwer thinks it has everything to do with the team not working hard enough.

“We’re going to be be hard-pressed to make the playoffs if we continue on the path we’re on now,” a calm but frustrated Brouwer said to Monumental Network. “I think playoffs should be the furthest thing from our minds as of right now.”

Below are his full comments to the press.

We didn’t get the crowd into it. We made it a boring atmosphere for the fans that were here. As a result, we were flat.

How do you go about fixing that?

It’s looking at yourself and wanting to win. It’s about wanting to work hard, wanting to help your teammates out. Wanting to win. That’s all it comes down to. Our talent level is there. Our effort’s not.

When does patience start wearing thin?

Soon if not now. We’re not panicking. I mean, we’re still able to throw together stints of hard work and sustained pressure. So there is a little glimmer [of hope], but there’s not a whole lot you can take out of tonight in terms of positives.

Is there a continuing theme that you don’t like to see at the beginning of your seasons? It seems like we’re talking about the same things.

Last year and this year, yeah, it’s looking to be like Groundhog Day. We’re in a tough division. We’re going to be be hard-pressed to make the playoffs if we continue on the path we’re on now. I think playoffs should be the furthest thing from our minds as of right now. We should be working on hard work, battling in practice. Having crisper passes. [Our] passes out there were embarrassing at times. Three passes in a row in the skates, can’t get into the zone. No wonder we can’t sustain any pressure.

Is that concentration too?

It’s concentration. I’s work ethic. It’s focus. It’s a lot of things. It starts in practice and it continues into warm-ups. We’re shooting high on our goalie when we shouldn’t be and then we’re sloppy during the game. Then we wonder why. We are sloppy. We can’t make break-out passes. We gotta be better.