Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
The Caps Must Dominate At Even Strength
The Washington Capitals are lucky that they have an elite power play unit. However, is having an elite power play really necessary to winning the Stanley Cup? Recent trends suggest that it’s not. The past four Stanley Cup champions have all had average at best power play units during the regular season.
- 2014-15 Blackhawks: 20th (17.6%)
- 2013-14 Kings: 27th (15.1%)
- 2012-2013 Blackhawks: 19th (16.7%)
- 2011-2012 Kings: 17th (16.9%)
Of course, having an elite power play unit is not a bad thing. It’s a blessing. Just note that the past four teams to win the Stanley Cup were anything BUT elite on the power play. What else do those four teams have in common? They dominated possession at even strength. Not only were they efficient when they had the puck, they were equally efficient at getting it back. They were so good at even strength that it didn’t even matter that their power plays were sub-par.
That’s the way that the Washington Capitals must be at even strength. They can’t just wait for their power play to save them. They need to get things done at even strength. The Washington Capitals made a very wise decision swapping out grit (Brouwer, Ward, Fehr) for speed and skill (Burakovsky, Oshie, Williams). Burakovsky and Williams have been monsters at even strength in terms of possession (though Burakovsky admittedly has a small sample size). Oshie doesn’t have the best possession numbers, but then again, he usually went against his opponent’s best lines while in St. Louis. The important thing is, Oshie isn’t going to hurt the Washington Capitals at even strength, which is more than I can say for Brouwer.
While the Caps will miss Mike Green’s even strength domination, Dmitry Orlov has been quite impressive in just over a 1000 even-strength minute sample size. Nate Schmidt is no slouch either. Sure, the Caps will miss Green’s production. However, when you consider how much they’ve improved in other areas, losing Green isn’t that big of a deal.
The Washington Capitals have the right ingredients to have a good shot of bringing a Stanley Cup to DC in June of 2016. However, they must follow the recipe for the end product to be a Stanley Cup.
Next: Five Reasons The Capitals Could Win It All In 2015