The Capitals Power Play Needs To Be Careful With The Panthers Penalty Kill

The Washington Capitals power play has been an up and down thing all season long. It started the season fine. On the first of November it was at 20%, a fine power play percentage. As you keep going through the months however that percentage just kept dropping.

On December 1st it was 18.3%. Then to start the new year it was clicking at 15.2% before it hit a low of 13.9% at the very end of the years first month.

Since then, the Capitals have returned to their usual spot, having a top power play in the NHL. Since January 27th the Capitals have a power play percentage of 23.8%, that is the 8th best power play in the entire league in that time frame. Overall it finished at 18.8% which finished bottom third of the NHL at 23rd.

Up and down.

If you can score 5v5 the power play is nothing more than a terrific luxury. The Capitals can score 5v5, but we saw how much easier things can be if they get some support on the man advantage. This season Washington scored 178 times at full and even strength, that was 13th in the league.

Even when the power play was going strong, the Capitals still tended to have a bit of an issue. They can get caught and give up some chances. The numbers don’t really tell us how much the Capitals gave up. During the season Washington’s power play surrendered 49 scoring chances against. That was only 14th most in the NHL. They also gave up 19 high danger chances against and that was actually 4th best. They did however give up 9 short handed goals this year, that was among the most being tied with Los Angeles for fifth.

I can’t speak for everybody, but it seemed a lot worse than that. And sometimes those scary moments look scary, but the other team fails to get a chance. That doesn’t change the fact that the other team’s penalty kill made the Caps power play worry a little bit.

The Caps will have to be careful with that in this first round matchup with the Florida Panthers.

The Panthers PK really isn’t anything to write home about. They finished the season killing 79.5% of the penalties they took. That is probably the definition of average and the rankings agree putting them at 16th out of 32 teams. Middle, average.

If we know one thing about this Panthers team going into the playoffs it’s that they can score. Florida lit the lamp 337 times this season, the best goal scoring team in the league. The second best team in the league, the Toronto Maples Leafs were twenty-five goals back at 312.

Just to compare, the 2009-10 Washington Capitals scored 313 goals. That was a high flying offense first team. This Panthers team scored twenty-four more times.

Twelve of those 337 goals came while shorthanded. That was second best in the league behind only Toronto. While down a man they had 69 scoring chances, that was tied for 3rd best in the NHL. Their 40 high danger attempts led the entire NHL.

The Capitals power play cannot afford to mess around in this series.

I don’t know if it’s in the Capitals power play DNA but it would really help them to simplify this series. Get control of the puck, get set up in the zone, try to get it to Ovechkin in his office, if you can’t just get traffic to the net and throw the puck towards the net and the traffic.

When you have guys like Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nicklas Backstrom and even John Carlson, you have guys who like to make plays rather than shoot. Sometimes these kinds of players can force plays and cause turnovers leading to pucks being cleared, or worse, chances coming against.

This first round matchup has the Capitals going against one of the deadliest team while down a man. They will have to be careful.

If a series is close a lot of the time it can come down to special teams. The Capitals have a pretty good power play, the Panthers have a good power play. Both teams have average penalty kills. But Florida’s can hurt you.

The Caps power play needs to be careful with the Panthers penalty kill.