Washington Capitals: Power Play Problems

The Washington Capitals are loaded. They have the greatest goal scorer of all-time in Alex Ovechkin, they have a mega-talented play-making center in Evgeny Kuznetsov, Olympic-hero TJ Oshie who excels in his bumper-position on the power play and one of the best offensive-defensemen in the league in John Carlson. And that’s not even counting guys like Dylan Strome or the injured Tom Wilson and Nicklas Backstrom. So can anyone explain why this team is downright putrid on the power play? I can.

Blaine Forsythe, the power play’s creator, should have been relieved of his duties a season ago but here we are, the Capitals power play system is the same. It’s stale, it’s predictable, it’s downright lazy at times, and it’s 0-for-9 on the young season. If the Capitals converted on even two of those chances, they’re probably 2-0 and this article doesn’t exist, instead, they’re 0-2.

In their loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs a night ago, the highlight of the power play was a body check by Dmitry Orlov. Let that sink in. When the Capitals were on the man-advantage, the Leafs were expected to score more often than the Caps were. Washington had a expected goals for (xGF) of 0.29 and the Leafs’ penalty kill had 0.64 expected goals for. That’s pathetic. Just like a season ago, the Capitals will begin hemorrhaging short-handed goals if this isn’t corrected.

One could argue that we’re only two games in, and sure, that’s true. But this is not a new group of players or a new system. Oh, how we wish it was a new system with growing pains.

It’s a power play that is slow with one real objective – get the puck to Alex Ovechkin. We all know that’s the primary objective. When the Caps control the puck in the zone, they work the puck rather slowly around the outside and try to feed Ovechkin with cross-ice passes or passes from Carlson at the point.

When the penalty kill is able to clear, the only player who can consistently gain entry is Marcus Johansson. The rest of the power play seems to almost stand-still, Carlson blindly dumping the puck to launch the slingshot to players that are hardly skating has already given team’s grade-A scoring chances. It will eventually lead to short-handed goals against.

After the loss to Toronto, the team’s captain deflected blame from the system and instead focused on the lack of execution.

“I think execution,” Ovi said. “First power play, we hit the crossbar and then in the second period missed a wide-open net. I think execution and afraid to get simple play and get one extra shot to find the dirty goal.”

The superstar winger is correct about the execution, but, I think the issue is far deeper than that. It’s a predictable setup, the 1-3-1 setup has been in-place in Washington since the Adam Oates-era and teams have adjusted.

The Capitals can fix that by doing one of two things. They can out-work and out-hustle their opponents, which they are absolutely not doing or they implement a new system. In an ideal world, the Capitals will do both. At a minimum, every power play ought to be treated as critically as Game 7 of the Stanley Cup or this team will struggle to operate at a 15 percent clip.