Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery was clearly not happy with his team’s power play after their 0-for-5 performance against the Edmonton Oilers on Friday. The Capitals have not scored on a man advantage in a full month and have just three total power play goals 17 games into the 2023-24 season.
Carbery remarked after their latest futile efforts that major changes were coming to how the special teams unit operates. On Sunday, the team got their first chance to practice with some of those changes.
While some past constants sound like they’re being tweaked, one ever present one is not. Carbery revealed that the NHL’s all-time leader in power play goals, Alex Ovechkin, will be staying in his signature spot in the left faceoff circle.
“We’re just looking for some adjustments personnel wise and we’ll look for a little bit of a different sort of mindset overall,” Carbery said. We’ll continue to adjust, continue to look at things, and try to find ways to improve it because it’s gotta be better.”
When pressed for more details, Carbery declined to add much further other than the tidbit about The Great Eight keeping his regular spot. Ovechkin has just one power play goal this season. At this point last season, he already had five.
“We’ll just move some guys around,” Carbery said. “I don’t want to get too much into the Xs and Os. I’ll make their assistant coach have to do his work in Ryan Warsofsky. We’ll just look for some different things of maybe where you’ve seen some things in the past. Different hands, different personnel, different things that we’re looking for. [Alex Ovechkin], obviously, being in his spot but seeing if we can try to look at some different options.”
Prior to becoming a head coach in Washington, Carbery served as an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs, leading the team’s power play unit. Once Carbery arrived, Toronto’s unit shot up to first in the league at 27.3 percent effectiveness in the 2021-22 season and second during the 2022-23 season, behind only the Edmonton Oilers.
Carbery is used to success up a man and what the Capitals have done so far this season is the opposite of successful. Their 6 percent effectiveness is the worst in the NHL and 2.5 percent worse than the next closest team, the St. Louis Blues (8.5 percent).
“We’re going to have to change a bunch,” Carbery said Friday. “Tons of different things personnel wise, puck management wise, puck recovery, decisions, routes. You name it, I saw it tonight from both units. We’ll continue to try to look for a combination of five guys that are able to execute the power play and be able to do the necessary things required to have an effective power play unit.”
The power play has been one of the main topics of conversation for the rookie bench boss since he was hired. During the preseason he said that the Capitals needed to change their power play formation so teams “don’t know what’s coming” and can’t neutralize or overly-focus on Ovechkin.
Given Ovechkin’s just one goal and two total power play points, it’s clear the Capitals and assistant coach Kirk Muller, who runs both units, have not accomplished what Carbery set out for them. They’ll have their first chance at turning that around on Monday against the San Jose Sharks.
The Sharks have one of the worst penalty kills in the entire NHL, ranking 30th at 72 percent effectiveness. They are also top 10 in the league when it comes to taking penalties per 60 minutes (4.4).
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
