The Washington Capitals have been plagued by a league-leading 11 too many men on the ice penalties this season, with the problem reaching nearly comedic levels in Thursday night’s 5-4 overtime defeat to the Ottawa Senators.
Not only did the Capitals take an initial bench minor for the infraction just 2:12 into the game, but they took yet another while killing off the first penalty, giving Ottawa a five-on-three. The back-to-back calls weren’t the first time the team has been punished for having too many men over the boards in quick succession; they also received two in 2:11 against the Chicago Blackhawks on December 17.
“Yeah, it’s been a hot topic in our coach’s office, I can tell you that,” head coach Spencer Carbery said Thursday. “Some of them, and we’ve gone back through them all, some of them are individual mental mistakes. Some are us just trying to push the envelope of a line change…we need to clean it up because you can’t – I mean, we do a great job killing those off, and I thought it gave our guys a ton of juice early in that game and got us involved right away. But we can’t be taking as many too many men penalties as we are. It’s getting a bit out of hand.”
The first of the penalties against Ottawa came as Alex Ovechkin bobbled a puck, and the Senators picked it up while the Capitals were trying to get their defense pair off the ice. Jakob Chychrun, not wanting to give up a clear odd-man rush, stayed out on the ice despite Martin Fehervary already jumping over the boards to replace him on the left side.
“It happens a lot with our D,” Carbery said Saturday. “This is where we need to tighten up. They have the puck, and they’re coming at us, and our D, the puck has gone down into their end, and our D are trying to get off the ice. But they’re also realizing, ‘Oh, jeez, they are coming at us.’ So you get put in those spots two or three times a game. Some games worse than others. So that change right there where guys are looking, and they’re trying to get on the ice, but then they also don’t want to give up a breakaway.”
Fehervary’s confusion caused him to race back to the bench and leap into the lap of Logan Thompson, Charlie Lindgren’s backup for the game. While the attempt was clever, it did not fool the officials.
“[Fehervary] thought Chychy was coming. Chychy did not come,” Carbery said. “He went on the ice and went, ‘Uh-oh, I’m out here, and we’re both lefty. Oops.’ And then he tries to jump up.
“[Ovechkin] has that puck for a second that you could argue like it’s kind of a grenade. He doesn’t really have full control. But our D thinks that the puck is going to get deep. It doesn’t. Now we’re in trouble. So it’s puck management. It’s watching our guy. It comes in a lot of different shapes and forms. We just have to do a better job in those scenarios.”
Carbery disagreed with the second call, which came as Aliaksei Protas had one foot on the bench and was clearly not affecting play.
“Now this one, I didn’t agree with the call,” Carbery said. “If you start calling those, I mean, there’s four or five a game where a guy’s touching a puck or playing a puck, and a guy is right at the thing. Especially early in the game. It’s a tough call to make. It happened, though. Dubois got it earlier in the season on the penalty kill, coming out with too many men. Some of these, yeah, we’ve got to get it cleaned up.”
New #ALLCAPS sweaters just dropped…. pic.twitter.com/y9LkIPWVXW
— Too Many Men (@2_much_man) January 31, 2025
Luckily, the Capitals’ penalty kill has been tremendous this season. Washington’s 83.9-percent kill success rate ranks third in the NHL, a marked improvement over the 79-percent success rate they finished last season with, which ranked 19th in the league.
