"One month ago in this space, we lamented that the Caps' lousy special teams were literally costing the team points in the standings. Since then, they've gone on a torrid 11-2-2 run and, unsurprisingly, their special teams have been better, posting a perfectly respectable middle-of-the-pack 20 percent efficiency on the power play and 82.1 success rate on the penalty kill over their last ten games."
"Lest you wonder if the Caps are simply victims of bad puck luck and due for some friendly regression any day now... don't hold your breath. Per Natural Stat Trick, the Caps are currently ranked 27th in the League in 5-on-4 expected goals-for rate and 26th in actual goals-for rate, and 27th in both 4-on-5 expected and actual goals-against rate."
One month ago the Caps' special teams were poor and costing standings points. Since then the team has gone 11-2-2, with a ten-game power-play efficiency near 20% and a penalty-kill success rate of 82.1%. The improvement is not solely explained by unsustainable shooting or stellar goaltending, as those rates have been middling. Underlying expected-goals metrics had been among the NHL's worst on both 5-on-4 and 4-on-5 situations. Recent ten-game rolling expected-goal rates for both units have risen. A notable change on the power play is reduced ice time for John Carlson, coinciding with smaller ice-time reductions for Jakob Chychrun and Rasmus Sandin.
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