Photo credit: Chris Gordon

The Washington Capitals’ 27th-ranked penalty kill was one reason the team could have missed the playoffs. Now it’s the reason they’re up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

In a tight battle against the New York Rangers in game 2 on Saturday, the PK turned chances for crushing goals into momentum for themselves — especially while killing off Steve Oleksy’s delay of game early in overtime. Four minutes later, Mike Green literally shook Verizon Center.

During the game-saving work a man down, no player contributed more than Eric Fehr.

In his 34-second shift, Fehrsie nearly scored a goal on the rush, burning off valuable PK time in the process. Once the Rangers regained the puck, Fehr raced back, sticking to Brad Richards like glue. Once the puck was moved to Derick Brassard, Fehr sprawled on the ice to block the shot. With the puck under him, Brassard poked away at Fehr’s stomach, pushing him all the way to the boards. It probably should have been a penalty, and it probably hurt a lot. Fehr lay in pain along the wall for a few seconds, before making his way to the bench with a grimace. It was an awesome shift.

“It wasn’t so much the shot as the guy trying to get the puck out from underneath me,” Fehr said when asked about the pain he endured. “The block felt good.”

“That was a pretty aggressive spear,” he told me. “I thought it was borderline, could have been called. I guess the ref didn’t want to do that in overtime. I didn’t even know the puck was under me, and I got guys poking me.”

Either way, the Caps successfully stifled the third Rangers power play of the night.

Taken over a whole season, the Caps PK has been bad. But towards the end of the season, it ceased to be a total disaster. Fehr credited the pick-up to confidence in Braden Holtby. Knowing that he was able to make saves to bail the team out allowed the Caps to take more risks.

“Holts is obviously our number-one penalty killer,” Fehr said. “He’s making big stops for us. When we felt confident in him, we can really pressure the power play and really be aggressive on it.”

“We expect a lot of big things from our PK,” he added. “We don’t think we’re 27th in the league.”

Holtby, as always, refused to take credit for the success.

“I think that’s a big key to any PK, any game,” he said. “You have to trust everyone on your team. That’s probably a big thing both ways. The start of the year we didn’t really know where we were going to be, weren’t real sure. Now I know when there’s shots from the point the guys are going to be in the right position. We have a lot of trust in each other.”

“It wasn’t that they were doing a bad job to start with, it was just we were learning,” Holtby added. “Guys kept having faith in each other and that’s why we’re at where we’re at now.”

Photo credit: Bruce Bennett

The Washington Capitals went from a penalty kill that was 78.8% successful to one with a 85.5% success rate in just one season. How are they doing it?

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I thought I would plot the shots and goals against from last year and this year to see if anything jumps out at us. The data is from NHL.com — the same information they use for their Ice Tracker. Circles represent goals scored and ‘X’ is a shot on goal.

Goals were scored all over the ice last season when the Caps were short-handed — especially outside of the “scoring chance” area. This year, it’s a different story:

Shots against are down per 60 minutes of short-handed time, 47.3 this year versus 50.0 a year ago. Goals against from the periphery — especially those from the top of the circles and outward — have been reduced significantly. Additionally, it appears there have been less goals scored immediately to the goalie’s right.

The reduction of goalie screens from teammates, the addition of Scott Hannan and John Carlson, and shorter shifts overall look to be keeping those low percentage goals from hitting the twine, helping Washington’s penalty kill to become one of the League’s best. To be exact, fifth overall in the league, a 20-spot improvement over last season.

Will the Caps be able to overcome their PK woes in the playoffs? (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

[Ed Note: With Peter galavanting in the middle of California for a wedding and Ian scrambling to keep up with all of the Barack The Red happenings, we're not going to have a gamer tonight covering the Lightning's 3-2 victory. Who wants to read more about that anyways? Not I. So tonight, we bring you something that has become a growing concern for the crew here at RMNB: the Capitals below average Penalty Kill. Will this do them in when the games really matter? What do you think? Read Neil's article and let us know in the comments below.]

To misquote Yogi Berra, “95% of hockey is half defense.” Or more precisely, 58.3% defense according to Alan Ryder.

Now whether that is true or not remains to be seen, but what we do know is that goaltending is not the issue for the Caps going into the playoffs – it is their Penalty Killing (PK).

If we look at the teams that won The Cup since the 1979-80 season a distinct pattern emerges:

It is difficult to win The Cup with a PK % of less than 80%. Currently, the Washington Capitals are at 78.49%. And as @DCCheapSeats correctly points out, it is coming on less chances per game than in the last four years.

Teams that won The Cup with Sub-80% PK since 1979-80 also have something else in common – they are all two-year dynasties:

• ’80 & ’81 NYI
• ’85 EDM (and they repeated in ’86)
• ’91 & ’92 PIT

As we look deeper it is evident they were not bad PK teams when compared to the league average:

1980 NYI 77.6% vs. 78.1% league average and the 1981 NYI team was above league average (79% vs. 77%)

1985 EDM was also above league average (78.47% vs 77.80%)

1991 PIT 79.2% vs 80.56% average and 1992 PIT 79.90% vs. 80.76%

As for the 2009-10 Washington Capitals, they are at 78.49% when the League Average looms at a hefty 81.36% – clearly inferior to the league average and enough to be the real cause for concern heading into the playoffs.

* My contract apparently goes through the end of time, which latest info says will be December 21st, 2012. Plan to start (and finish) your Christmas shopping a little early that year!

http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=404

Jose Theodore and Semyon Varlamov are two of the 10 goalies this year with the largest difference between their even strength save percentage and their penalty kill save percentage. Theodore has been worse by 8.8% (.915 to .827), while Varly has been worse by 9.7% (.941 to .844).

The penalty kill save percentage is in a smaller sample size though, and so there isn’t as much reason to worry as you’d think:

“Philadelphia and Washington both have a much better save percentage at even strength than on the penalty kill, which indicates that the teams have struggled on special teams. However, since the goalies have been able to make saves during 5 on 5 it seems likely that their performance will likely improve as well while shorthanded, and that should help the Flyers and Capitals going forward.”

http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=402

Mike Knuble has just about doubles his even-strength points per 60 minutes from 2008 to 2009 (1.5 to 3.0), and is one of the top 10 forwards in the league in that respect this year.

“For Washington’s Knuble it’s a case of responding extremely well to opportunities playing alongside obscenely talented linemates.”

The Capitals actually have 9 forwards scoring at least 1.7 points per 60 minutes, which is tied for the most in the NHL.

“In Washington it could be a case of spreading out their truly elite scorers (Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin) in such a way that it artificially inflates checking line players like Matt Bradley.”

http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2009/12/28/1208675/players-of-the-decade-per-game

Not really a surprise, but Ovie’s #1 at 56.1 goals per 82 games. “Backstrom”, who I assume is Washington’s own Nicklas Backstrom, is 6th in assists at 61.4 per 82 games. Going to overall points, Ovechkin drops to 3rd at 106.3 per 82 games, with Sidney Crosby (boo!) on top at 112.3.

“It’s always strange for me to think that Crosby has drawn so much flak in his short career. He’s been a dominant offensive player playing against the other teams’ top lines. His path to the Stanley Cup was two years shorter than Wayne Gretzky’s. He led the league in scoring when he was 19. I suppose things could be worse: he could have *actually* done something wrong!”

Well yeah, Hawerchuk, if you want to be all “objective” about it. But what’s the fun in that?

http://brodeurisafraud.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-offence-rules-new-nhl.html

In the playoffs since 2006, the team with the better regular season winning percentage won 61% of the series.
The team with more goals scored won 62% of the time.
The team with the better win threshold won 63% of the time.
The team with fewer goals allowed won just 45% of the time.
The team with the better regular season save percentage won 42% of the time.

(Thus the title, Why Offence Rules The New NHL)

Because of the way points are awarded for getting to over-time, good defensive teams have a bit of an advantage in the regular season (and so in getting to the playoffs). Once in though, it looks like it comes down to which team has the most fire-power. Considering the Capitals are a near lock to make it to the post-season, their scoring ability might prove a decisive advantage.

http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=401

Roundtable discussion with everyone mostly in agreement that the way points are awarded now isn’t good:

“Think about it: right now, if the game is tied with three minutes to go, your team has three options: 1) win (worth 2 points); 2) lose (0 points); or 3) tie (worth 1.5 points.) So your incentive to win is +0.5 points, while your disincentive to lose is -1.5 points. When giving up an extra goal is three times as bad as scoring one is good, you’re not going to try to score! Make it three points for a regulation win, and in addition make one more goal equivalent to one more goal against – plus each team will have a shot at a 3rd point. Of course, this would tend to favor good teams and decrease parity, so it’ll never get approved by the league…

Therefore if ANY team were to somehow manage to eliminate regulation scoring altogether, either with a new system or by cooperating with their opponents, they would finish the season with 123 points and a top playoff seed. In essence, the shootout creates a statistical incentive to reduce scoring, especially for the weaker teams. It also creates the illusion of league parity where there is none, often allowing inferior teams to advance to the postseason and denying us more compelling playoff matchups.”

I agree 100%. The system seems blatantly dumb on it’s face to me. Maybe I’d be more in favor of this kind of parity if the Capitals were a mediocre defensively oriented team, but just from a theoretical aspect it should be fixed.

This weekly post will deliver powerfully interesting links that will make you laugh, cry and maybe even kiss that dumb brain goodbye.

This week learn about ties, an awesomely great fighter, why EA Sports hates the Capitals and how Jose Theodore’s current flashy statistics might be a little misleading… Take it away Daniel!

http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2009/12/21/1210151/wall-street-journal-column-nhl

“Whether any team will admit it, they’ve started to take advantage of the extra points available to them if they play for the tie.”

Given the way the rules are set up regarding points, a cost-benefit analysis makes it pretty clear that it’s better to play it safe an assure yourself of at least one point than to take any risks late in a tie game.

I like the idea to change things to: 3 points for a win in regulation, 2 in OT, and 1 for an OTL. 0 points for losing in regulation.

http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2009/12/11/1192502/rick-rypien

If you’re going to fight, you might as well be good at it. You know; using both hands and throwing combinations, actually defending yourself, etc. I think Anderson Silva could learn to skate a little bit, and boy would he make a good enforcer.

http://hockproject.blogspot.com/2009/12/summary-of-goaltending-metrics.html

(1) Wins are largely useless for judging goalies, since they are a team stat.

(2) Goals Against Average doesn’t consider how many shots a goalie faced.

(3) Save Percentage doesn’t consider the difficulty of the shots that a goalie faced.

“And I think that defines the mantra that hockey statisticians strive by,

“It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being better than before.””

I’ll drink to that!

http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=396

“A great goalie playing shorthanded is much more likely to give up a goal than a mediocre goalie playing with five skaters on each side.”

Jose Theodore is near the top of the list when it comes to facing the fewest percentage of his shots on the penalty kill. The Caps have been very good at avoiding shots while down 4-on-3 or 5-on-3. I guess that means Theodore hasn’t even been quite as “good” as his straight save percentage has looked..

http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=393

If the Caps and the Pens met in the playoffs with the teams largely as-is, Pittsburgh would be predicted to win about 55% of the time.

“Both the Penguins and Capitals are known for their superstar-driven offenses, puck-moving defensemen and entertaining style. The Penguins are better at even-strength while the Capitals are better with the man advantage. The big difference will be in nets, where Fleury should be able to edge out Varlamov as he did last spring.”