After twenty games, the Washington Capitals find themselves in a novel position. For the first time since 2016-17, the Caps appear to have a darn good penalty kill. And you could argue that they’re even underperforming.

The PK has killed 62 of their 73 shorthanded situations. They have not surrendered more than one goal in any game this season. They’re a solid top-10 unit right now, which is a notable change from the last couple years. In Trotz’s final season and in Reirden’s first, the PK was somewhere between mediocre and bad.

But as of their twentieth game in 2019-20, the Caps killing 83.8 percent of their penalties, ranking them eighth in the league. It’s a major reason why they have the second best all-situation goal differential in the league (plus-19, one behind Boston).

I’m encouraged when I look at how the Caps PK has been successful. Below are opponent rates per hour during penalty kills — plus general kill percentage and save percentage. Green means better. The data comes from Natural Stat Trick.

With 4.5 expected opponent goals per hour (using Natural Stat Trick’s reckoning), you could argue Washington’s had the best PK skaters in the whole league. But their goalies’ save percentage — .878 —  is only middling, suggesting that this darn good PK might even be underperforming a bit. That gap falls mostly on Braden Holtby‘s shoulders. His .870 save percentage while shorthanded is the biggest drag on the PK.

That good xG (expected goals) number comes from the Caps effectively clearing the slot and high-danger areas while a man down. Below are heatmaps from HockeyViz for the nine best PK teams in the league. Purple blobs mean opponents get fewer shots from those locations. Washington is top middle — the Carol Brady location in the grid.

COL	WSH	CGY
NYI	PHI	EDM
VGK	PIT	SJS

There are a few teams in there — Edmonton, Vegas, San Jose, Calgary —  who aren’t quite as stout at suppressing dangerous shots. Each of those teams, however, have had excellent PK goaltending. Let’s see how long that lasts as the sample grows.

Speaking of samples, Washington’s getting a lot of practice at the PK. They go shorthanded 3.7 times a game, seventh most in the league. The team’s PIM leaders won’t surprise you: Radko Gudas and Tom Wilson, though Tyler Lewington racked up 17 penalty minutes in just five games. As the team does better at controlling play during five-on-five, we should hope they can stay out of the penalty box more as well.

Using the same presentation as I used for the whole league, here’s a color-coded look at opponent rates (plus time on ice and save percentage) for Washington’s most common penalty killers. The color-coding scale here is just among these players, so it’s a bit more scattered.

Nick Jensen looks like the standout guy here, suppressing shots in big minutes while also (unlike at five-on-five) getting good goaltending. Tom Wilson and Nic Dowd aren’t quite so sterling, and Radko Gudas’ numbers are a bit spotty, but in general it’s a bit harder to pin penalty-kill performance on individuals since there’s so much interdependency in it. I’m hesitant to draw strong conclusions here, save this one: Brian MacLellan’s additions to the team since last winter have done wonders for the PK. Hathaway, Hagelin, and Jensen are all strong PKers.

I expect goaltending to eventually catch up to the good work the skaters are doing. Combine better saving with fewer PKs overall, and the Caps are looking very, very strong at this half of special teams.

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Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong