Top 3 questions for the Washington Capitals still to be answered in 2020

1. Is the power play ever going to recover?

When talking about power play’s in hockey, there has been no more prominent example over the last decade than Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. Ovechkin’s one-timer on the power play is one of the most iconic goals in the history of the sport, and for good reason. With the likes of Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, T.J. Oshie, and John Carlson joining Ovechkin with a man advantage, it’s the recipe for a historically lethal power play. For the last several years, it’s been just that.

Would you be surprised if I told you that same power play is now 17th in the league and has been borderline ineffective since December?

The Capitals power play started the season at 25.3 percent effectiveness for the first 28 games of the season, which at the time was fifth best in the league, as it should always be. After December, the power play fell off the face of the Earth and has yet to recover. During a 25-game stretch between December-February, the once terrifying Capitals power play scored just ten goals, and allowed SEVEN shorthanded goals. With a man advantage, the Capitals goal differential was just plus-3. That is absolutely awful.

Even worse is that it’s not just some crazy stretch of bad luck, it’s that just about nothing has been done to fix it. It’s quite bizarre to watch at times. The can’t get into the offensive zone thanks to the slingshot they keep trying to run, there is never anybody in front of the net, passes are telegraphed from a mile away, and even when they’re not nobody but Ovechkin seems to want to shoot.

It falls on assistant coach Blaine Forsythe, whose solutions to this have been nothing short of mind boggling. The go to move is to just swap Ovechkin and Carlson’s spots, and I can count on one hand how many times that has worked. Then Kuznetsov, one of the most skilled playmakers in the league, got demoted for some reason? So instead of setting up Ovechkin for one timers, it would be Brendan Leipsic instead, who for some reason gets power play time. Still, nobody gets to the net at all. Everybody floats around their one little area waiting for their defenders to leave them alone. Shockingly enough, this didn’t work, and still went on for two whole months.

Since the All-Star break, the power play improved ever so slightly, going 10/52 before the season pause, for 19.3 percent effectiveness which lines up with their full season average of 19.4 percent. Still not good enough.

The saving grace for the Capitals this season is that  they’ve been excellent offensively at even strength (mainly thanks to Ovechkin), which has helped mask a lot of these issues. Also their penalty killing has been among the best in the league, but 19.4 percent on the power play is pedestrian at best, and there is no excuse for even just mediocrity with the talent on the ice.

If the postseason were to still roll around with this power play still intact, the Capitals would not be going far. If they were to face a team like Carolina again in the first round that has shown they can contain Washington at 5 on 5, odds are they’re not going to be scoring a lot or keeping goals out based on the defense and goaltending. This break might’ve come at a great time, because it seems like it saved this team from a potential embarrassment.

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