Caps’ penalty kill flourished in first season under Scott Allen originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
WASHINGTON — After enduring a down year on the penalty kill last season, the Capitals’ PK unit emerged as one of their biggest strengths in 2022-23 under the guide of assistant coach Scott Allen. Heading into their penultimate game of the season Tuesday against the Boston Bruins, the Capitals held an 82.9% penalty-kill percentage that ranked fourth in the NHL.
The Capitals hired Allen from their AHL affiliate Hershey Bears over the offseason to replace the departed Scott Arniel, the lone member of their 2021-22 coaching staff who didn’t return for this year’s campaign. Allen has since overseen a special teams group that improved its penalty-kill rate by 2.5% from last season.
It took a little while for the unit to come together. After Allen introduced his new system during training camp, Washington posted a penalty-kill percentage of 78.3% over its first 20 games. In their 60 games since, only once have the Capitals allowed multiple power play goals in an outing.
“I think the penalty kill going back to the beginning of the year when it wasn’t top five in the league, there was a lot of growth from that time,” head coach Peter Laviolette said in his postgame press conference Tuesday after the Capitals went 3-for-3 on the PK in a 5-2 win over the New York Islanders.
“If you go through 10 or 15 games and you find yourself in the bottom third, to get to the point where you’re in the top 5 is a really good strides by a group. So, Scott Allen has done a really good job with that, and the players have a really good job and have a really good understanding of what we’re supposed to do when we’re out there.”
Five of their current players have registered at least 100 minutes of ice time on the Capitals’ penalty kill this season: Trevor van Riemsdyk (196:15), Nick Jensen (188:39), Nic Dowd (154:55), Conor Sheary (136:34) and Martin Fehervary (106:22). With Sheary the lone member of that list not under contract for next season, the team is poised to enter next season with a largely similar group working the PK that it’s finishing up with now.
That’s good news for the Capitals, who will also hope to see full, healthy seasons out of John Carlson and Tom Wilson. Both Carlson and Wilson were among their best penalty killers in 2021-22, but injuries knocked them each out of the lineup for months at a time.
As they finish out their final two games of the season, the Capitals will have a chance to join some elite company in franchise history. They enter play Tuesday with 38 power-play goals allowed, tied with the 2015-16 Capitals for the record of the fewest in any full 82-game campaign. Only twice have they ever finished under 40, with the other being 1997-98 (39).
Facing both the Bruins and New Jersey Devils — two teams with power-play percentages in the top half of the league — keeping the puck out of the net will be no easy task. But given just how dominant the Capitals have been on that side of special teams, the pressure will be on their opponents to try and beat them at one of the best parts of their game.
