Grading the Capitals performance through the break

The All Stark break is here and after the festivities are over the Washington Capitals will have a bye week with no game until Feb. 11 against the Boston Bruins. The Caps sit at fourth place in the Metropolitan Division with a 27-20-6 record for 60 points.

They are two points behind the New York Rangers for third and lead the Pittsburgh Penguins by three points. They currently occupy the first Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference. If the season ended today, they’d face the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the playoffs.

Let’s grade the Capitals from special teams, goaltending, offense and defense.

Penalty Kill

The Capitals are ranked eighth in the NHL in penalty kill percentage with a success rate of 81.4 percent. The Caps had eight penalty minutes the other night against the Columbus Blue Jackets but killed off the lone penalty of the game.

The game prior to that which was a loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs saw the Caps go 3 for 4 on the penalty kill. In the win over the Pittsburgh Penguins, the PK went two for three.

Grade B: The penalty kill isn’t too shabby thus far this season. It’s important they continue to shut things down.

Power Play

The Capitals power play currently ranks 19th in the NHL with a success rate of 20.5 percent. Just in front of them is the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers who are just ahead of them in the Metropolitan Division standings. They are just ahead of the Seattle Kraken.

Here are how the units looked last time.

First unit: T.J. Oshie, Nicklas Backstrom, Marcus Johansson, Alex Ovechkin, Erik Gustafsson

Second unit: Dylan Strome, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Conor Sheary, Alex Ovechkin, Dmitry Orlov

Alex Ovechkin leads the Caps with 10 power play goals. T.J. Oshie has five. Evgeny Kuznetsov and Marcus Johansson each have four. Dylan Strome has three, Conor Sheary and John Carlson have two, Anthony Mantha, Nicklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson each have one.

Evgeny Kuznetsov leads the Caps with 12 power play assists. Dylan Strome has 11. Alex Ovechkin and Marcus Johansson each have eight. Erik Gustafsson has six. Conor Sheary and John Carlson each have five. Sonny Milano has four. Dmitry Orlov has three. T.J. Oshie, Anthony Mantha, Trevor van Riemsdyk each had one.

Grade C: The power play started slow but has recently gotten better. But they haven’t quite totally improved yet which puts them at an average grade.

Goalies

The goalies were a weakness the last couple seasons but not this season. Even in tough losses, they rarely are ever on the net minders.

Darcy Kuemper was the big name they got over the offseason. While his record isn’t his greatest, his goals against average and save percentage are much better than Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek.

Kuemper is 15-14-4 with a 2.62 goals against average and a .915 save percentage.

The Capitals also brought in Charlie Lindgren who has been a valuable backup and even shined big time in December when Kuemper was hurt.

Lindgren is 12-6-2 with a 2.67 goals against average and a .907 save percentage.

Overall I’ve been impressed with both goalies. Kuemper I wasn’t shocked with so far this season as he faces even stiffer competition in the Metropolitan Division. The biggest shocker I had was finding someone as valuable as Lindgren available on the market.

Grade B: The goaltending has been much better than last year. If this post was written a year ago, that goaltending duo of Vanecek and Samsonov would’ve gotten a D. This year they get a B which is a much better outcome you could hope for. But then again it’s also a midterm grade and not quite a final grade so they need to keep it going.

Defense

The Caps rank 23rd in goals against per game at 2.83. That’s really good and equates to having the ninth best defense in the NHL. Cracking the top 10 in anything is pretty good.

Part of it has to be all defensemen except John Carlson playing for their future with the Caps. Carlson is the only player guaranteed a contract for next season. The rest will be hitting free agency.

Martin Fehervary and Alex Alexeyev are the only two defensemen who are restricted free agents which means they can’t test the market if the Caps give them a qualifying offer. If they don’t get one, like Samsonov last season, they automatically become unrestricted free agents and can hit the open market.

That means the unrestricted free agents are Dmitry Orlov, Nick Jensen, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Erik Gustafsson, and Matt Irwin are all unrestricted free agents.

Carlson will be out for a long time but other guys like Orlov and Gustafsson have stepped up. So much so I’d make re signing both players a priority then Trevor van Riemsdyk if there’s room.

Grade B+: The defense has gotten better and more importantly has stepped up with Carlson out.