The Washington Capitals are coming off a road loss to the Boston Bruins. Saying the Caps lost on the road is rare enough. They are a top road team in the NHL, having played 17 times away from home and having just five losses. Their 24 road points are behind only Minnesota (27), Winnipeg (26) and Florida (25). New Jersey, Colorado and Utah also have 24 road points.
Like the road loss, something else rare happened in that game vs the Bruins. The Capitals lost the special teams battle.
When you look at the game stats it really doesn't look like that big of a loss in that category. Washington went 1-3 on the power play, while the Bruins went 1-4 with the man advantage. That's pretty even right?
Well, if you watched the game you'll know the reason why special teams cost the Caps that game. One they did a allow a power play goal. You can't kill them all, but we'll show you why that is important in a few minutes. But Washington also had a five minute power play in the third period and walked away with a grand total of zero goals on that extended power play.
It's not very often you can look at one moment and say that alone cost the team the game. But in a 1-1 game early in the third period, scoring no goals on a five minute power play. Yeah, that cost them the game.
The Capitals special teams failing them on the road is something to talk about because the Caps have one of, if not the best special teams on the road in the entire league. There are a bunch of teams out there that are good at one side of the special teams and not so good on the other, or maybe average at both, or in some cases, are not good on either. Washington is one of the few who are very good on both the power play and penalty kill on the road.
The Caps have the third best road penalty kill in the league so far this year, killing 86.5% of the penalties they have taken. Pittsburgh is number one at 88.5%, at 87.5% is the Predators who sit second.
While not quite as high, they are also very good on the power play on the road too. Their road power play percentage is 25.5%, eighth in the league.
Without going into information overload look at the penalty kill percentages of the teams above them in the power play percentage ranking.
79.2%
76.2%
83.3%
77.8%
76.5%
83.3%
83.8%
There only a couple of teams that are up there with the Caps 86.5% PK. Florida is the first 83.3% you see. Their power play is 31.4%. Vancouver is the other 83.3%, their power play is a tad better than Washington at 26.7%. Utah is at 83.8%, their power play also slightly better than the Caps at 25.9%.
You have plenty of teams that are good on the power play on the road but are average at best on the penalty kill. Washington is good to very good at both.
Look at Tampa Bay for example. Yes, their power play is a great 34%, but they are the team that is 76.2% on the PK. That percentage is quickly creeping up the the bad range. As a result they allow 3.25 goals a game and are just 9-6-1 on the road. Vegas is similar. Their 76.5% PK is in part leading them to allow 3 goals a game and they are barely over .500 on the road being 9-5-3.
We can go on the flip side of this as well. Nashville has a 87.5% penalty kill away from home. We have already said that is second best, above the Caps. But their power play on the road is...not good. It's 12.5%. They average 1.82 goals for on the road. Their road record is 3-10-4.
The LA Kings are a good example too. Their 84.3% PK is very good, their 10.9% power play is very bad. Their 9-8-4 on the road so far this season.
Pittsburgh is a good example of being great on one and kind of average at the other. Yes, they're great on the penalty kill, but their power play is just OK. Not bad, not great. Just good, reliable. It's 20.5% on the road.
This season Washington is really one of four, maybe five teams who are good on both ends of special teams on the road. You have to say it is a really big reason why they have had so much success on the road this season, being 12-5-0 and having a long road winning streak earlier in the season.
We'll see if this can continue. If it can, especially into the playoffs, the Capitals could be a really tough out. They're a really good team at 5v5, toward the top in both goals for and goals against. It looks like the Caps could be a team with home ice advantage in the east. At least in some series. Special teams can be a huge factor in playoff series. If they have home ice and they're one of the best road special teams in the league?
Watch out!