Washington Capitals: Breaking down how to fix their penalty issues

One of the issues from last season that has seemed to carry over into this year so far for the Washington Capitals have been the penalties they’ve been taking. It was a problem last season and so far this season it hasn’t been resolved.

The Caps have taken 17 minor penalties in the offensive zone through their 11 games this season. The last three non matching minors in the Rangers loss were all offensive zone penalties and seven of their last 15 and 13 of their last 25 have occurred in this attacking zone.

Richard Panik leads in this dreadful category with three penalties in the last four games. Nic Dowd, Garnet Hathaway, and T.J. Oshie each have two. Then there’s Nicklas Backstrom, Zdeno Chara, Carl Hagelin, Nick Jensen, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Connor McMichael, Conor Sheary and Tom Wilson with one each.

These are the types of penalties they’ve taken: six tripping, three holding, two hooking, two interference, boarding, cross checking, high sticking, and slashing.

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The Caps overall have been penalized for the sixth most minutes with a total of 137 PIM. The penalty kill is okay but near the bottom of the league. Actually it’s more toward the middle at 18th with a success rate of 79.49 percent. They’ve allowed the 12th most goals with eight power play goals allowed.

The one good strength the Caps special teams have is their power play. The power play is ranked fifth in the league but a few days ago ranked as high as second. Their success rate is 34.62 percent. They are tied for ninth in power play goals with nine.

The Caps need to play a more disciplined game beginning this afternoon against the Philadelphia Flyers. A big key to beating the Flyers will be staying out of the box.

Brenden Dillon leads the team with 16 penalty minutes. Behind him is Nic Dowd with 12. T.J. Oshie has 10. Tom Wilson has nine. Garnet Hathaway has eight. Those are all valuable players on this team. Many of them are heavy hitters so it’s no surprise a lot of them have taken penalties.

The Caps will look to limit their time on the penalty kill this afternoon. The Flyers power play isn’t much of a threat as they’re ranked 10th in the league but you still want to limit their chances as much as possible.