As part of our series of post-mortems, here’s the death bell for the Washington Capitals. After the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Capitals have a few areas to fix. It’s mostly just getting their confidence versus the Pittsburgh Penguins back. Please.
The Washington Capitals have again been eliminated in the second round. Again by the Pittsburgh Penguins. They just can’t get over the hill, despite having the best team in the regular season. Here’s how the Washington Capitals can change that. The areas they must focus on to be better after the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Confidence
In his exit interview, Nicklas Backstrom, a player that should always be huge for the Capitals in the playoffs, admitted Washington lost in the first two games. The Capitals accepted the mindset that they had lost after just two games. While the team recovered in Game 3, they then lost in game 4. A game without Sidney Crosby on the other side.
From then on, the Capitals knew they were done. Which is why they changed their game – and that worked. They started playing a different game, one the Penguins were unready for. And they were able to heat up, gaining more confidence from game 5 to game 6.
And then they came into game 7, and they changed their lines back to the ones that weren’t working. Watching Alex Ovechkin being switched off of line 3 to line 1, it could be seen that that was a mistake. Ovechkin was doing better work with Lars Eller and Tom Wilson. There was no need to further switch him and Andre Burakovsky.
The Capitals accepted their fate after game 2, after game 4, and after 1 goal in game 7. They weren’t able to capitalize on their immensely better play in the first 10 minutes, and it ended up killing the Capitals. They gave up after Braden Holtby allowed one goal because they expected heartbreak. You can’t do that in the playoffs, especially in the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the defending champions.
If the Capitals are going to change that, it will take a culture change. Which is why the rumors of Ovechkin being traded makes some sense. But the Capitals shouldn’t do that, but keep him around. Something must be done, though.
Braden Holtby
And I personally think it’s trading Braden Holtby. Yes, Holtby won the Vezina last year and is a finalist this year. He’s one of the best goaltenders… in the regular season. When it comes time for the playoffs, Holtby falls apart. And that will always kill the Capitals. They come to rely on the success of Holtby, and then he doesn’t deliver.
Holtby, in the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, delivered only a .909 SV% and a 2.47 GAA. Those are worse than his regular season stats by some distance. As a goaltender, you simply cannot be worse in the playoffs, yet that’s what Holtby did. Maybe if you switch his performances, the Capitals are still in the playoffs.
Six times in the playoffs this season, Holtby delivered performances below a .900 SV%. The weird thing is, he won two of those performances. But still, he then delivered bad performances within the .900 range. He delivered the worst goaltender performance of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, posting a .786 SV% in 40 minutes in game 2.
Again, the Capitals gave up after that game. Holtby should have been better in that game, and he allowed 3 goals on 14 shots. This all boils down to his inability to play netminder in the playoffs. It’s not a problem he had last year or the year before. But it’s a problem he had now, and it killed the Caps more so than Ovechkin not being able to score.
Converting Chances Into Goals
The Capitals had more shots on goal than the Penguins. They had more shot attempts as well. Yet they ultimately had fewer goals than the Penguins, and that’s what matters. The Capitals shot percentage in the Penguins series was just 7%. That shutout on 29 shots doesn’t help.
Next: Stanley Cup PlayoffS: Rangers Downfall
But in games 5 and 6, when the Capitals got their groove back, their shot percentage rose to 15%. It more than doubled, because the Capitals became more selective and started scoring. And in game 7, it fell back down to Earth.
The Capitals displayed the ability to score on more shots. They just have to choose their targets and be confident in taking those shots. They stopped throwing everything on net. And then they restarted out of desperation in game 7. They shouldn’t have. That selective stuff worked really well.
The Capitals have to be coached better to get their shots through. They just couldn’t beat Marc-Andre Fleury, who was a strength for the Penguins. Fleury only posted a .927 SV% in the series though. He was better in the Columbus series. He’s been better in the Ottawa series. The Capitals had a chance to beat him in the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs. They couldn’t convert on that chance, just like in all their games versus the Penguins.