Washington Capitals Playoffs: Top 3 keys to victory over Panthers

#2 Special teams execution

The Capitals power play was awful all regular season long. It was good for a couple stretches but for the most part, it was bad. But in the playoffs it has shown up. The Capitals are four for 12 on the power play which is tied for the third highest rate in the playoffs through May 7. That’s a success rate of 33.3 percent.

The Caps are also one of four teams in the NHL to have four players with a power play goal: Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie and Tom Wilson. On the other side the penalty kill is stopping the Panthers top 5 regular season power play.

The Capitals are the only team in the playoffs that have killed off all power play opportunities against. They’ve stopped all nine Panthers power plays, a team that was tied for fifth in the NHL in the regular season.

Washington has allowed 19 shots on nine power play opportunities in this series and have the second lowest shots against per 60 minutes of penalty kill time (33.43 shots per 60 minutes of penalty kill time), only trailing Colorado (32.35 shots per 60 minutes of penalty kill time).

It’s very shocking to see the special teams step up but that’s what you gotta do if you want to knock off a team like Florida.