The Washington Capitals-Pittsburgh Penguins’ series seesawed between end-to-end rushes and sober, dispassionate cycling. The Capitals outscored the Penguins 12-7 at 5v5, and also bested them by a slim margin in Corsi. Nevertheless, they were lucky to progress to the Eastern Conference finals given their lack of versatility on offense.
The Capitals are too dependent on a coterie of puck-handlers to create offense for their shooters off the rush. Evgeny Kuznetsov, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Ovechkin, T.J. Oshie, Jakub Vrana, and Dmitry Orlov can gain the zone, and then delay a few seconds while letting their off-the-puck forwards and defensemen find space before the puck-carrier dishes it to the best option for a shot.
Of course, if the lane is there, the puck-handler will attack. But the drive and kick, or burying one’s head and driving – that is also how the cycle gets created. A Capitals’ skater retrieves the puck off the shot attempt, and the puck bounces around the zone, and that is the closest approximation this squad has to a forecheck. The Capitals beat the Penguins without proof that they could dump and retrieve with any consistency. (The numbers don’t support this, but from my vantage point the Capitals’ best forechecker is Oshie.)
In the next round, if the Lightning can derail the Capitals’ playmakers through vexatious pressure from the forwards and confrontational defensemen, Washington will be forced to forecheck. Suddenly, puck placement will matter. Coordination and execution by the F1, F2, and F3 will be vital to generating offense.
Washington launched several odd-man rushes – with a couple of these resulting in soul-crushing goals – by taking advantage of the Penguins’ strong-side defenseman pinching. The Lightning need to be careful when they establish territorial advantage that the Capitals do not weaponize that aggression to produce a counterattack. The Capitals won Game 3 off an Olli Maatta error, which resulted in the Ovechkin game-winning goal.
Multiple reasons contributed to the slackened gap control between the Penguins’ defensemen and the Capitals’ puck-carriers. The Capitals did a nice job exiting the zone with speed, which created separation between Pittsburgh’s forwards and defensemen. The Penguins were banged up after two Cup runs, and the back-to-back champions didn’t have enough gas to assault a hungry Capitals team in its transition defense. At least they couldn’t provide asphyxiating back pressure with any regularity. For Pittsburgh, there was also the lingering fear that Kuznetsov, Vrana, or any of the Caps’ dynamic puck-handlers would beat their strong-side defender one-on-one and leave no support for goaltender Matt Murray. So for Pittsburgh’s defense, staying in front of the puck-carrier was the best choice. And the deadly odd-man rushes were the consequences of not abiding by that conservatism. The gap was loose enough for the Capitals to gain entry by carrying the puck in nearly every time they attacked.
Goaltender Braden Holtby played superbly for the Capitals, but the Penguins experienced success when they shot the puck into traffic, looking for screens and a deflection. With the Lightning, the difference is that, after the puck eddies around the zone and a shot is taken, they have the speed and support to vaporize the outlet pass from the winger off the half-wall or beat the nearest defenseman to the puck for the retrieval. The Capitals were able to layer well against Pittsburgh and get in shooting lanes and collapse in the slot. But Washington’s defensemen and forwards are still prone to reckless passes under pressure. Game 6 was a commendable performance by the Capitals, but one should not forget earlier games in the series.
There were sloppy errors. Washington almost lost Game 3 because, on a four-on-four, Matt Niskanen cast a lazy indirect pass that the Penguins intercepted, and then the Pens’ Jake Guentzel deked Orlov out of his skates before passing the puck to Crosby.
In Game 1, Orlov stepped up in the offensive zone and Alexander Ovechkin, who was covering underneath for Orlov, flubbed his attempt at denying a pass to Sidney Crosby. The Lightning need to make Washington switch. Maybe the Capitals can muster good team defense for stretches, but they are inconsistent in their focus. The Lightning will need interchanging between forwards and defensemen. Keep the puck in the offensive zone long enough and Washington will miss a read in coverage. A healthier and well-rested Penguins team would have done better exposing this against the Capitals.
The Lightning did a better job at involving their defensemen in the offense as the series progressed against Boston. By Game 5, the second-wave attack was back. The Lightning defensemen were involved in the rush (even Braydon Coburn) after forwards pushed back the opponent on the entry. Weak-side defensemen were cutting to the net. Dan Girardi even scored a game-winner off of this!
The Lightning beat the snot out of the Bruins because the relationship between Tampa Bay’s forwards and defensemen was symbiotic. The forwards sunk deep in the defensive zone in support and covered underneath when the defensemen stepped up on the puck-carrier. And the defensemen pinched wisely on the strong side and weak side and became engaged in the rush.
I think the back pressure from the Brayden Point line will cause significant problems for Ovechkin and Kuznetsov. The Capitals habitually overpass, and if they want to beat Tampa Bay, they need to be much more pragmatic in terms of funneling pucks at Andrei Vasilevskiy, even if from a bad angle. Vasilevskiy was sharp against Boston, but he can be susceptible to a soft goal from the off-slot.
Kuznetsov was villainous against Pittsburgh at attacking off the wings and finding openings to sprint through for breakaway chances. But coach Jon Cooper will surely try to deploy Ryan McDonagh and Anton Stralman as the shutdown pair against Kuznetsov and Ovechkin, and the Lightning’s defensemen will get confrontational and challenge those forwards in the hope of forcing a chip-and-retrieve.
The health of Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom and Andre Burakovsky makes forecasting this series difficult. Missing one of their best forwards and a skilled complementary piece, the Capitals’ depth is strained. Washington is possibly facing the deepest forward group in the NHL. If the Lightning put forth the same effort they’ve been demonstrating in transition defense and in their retrievals -- and they continue to make a concerted effort to ignore Tom Wilson’s provocations and avoid putting the Capitals on the power play -- it would take Holtby stealing four games for the Capitals to beat the Lightning. Tampa Bay has a chance to end this series quickly.