Washington Capitals: What every contender can learn from them
By Rohan Yaradi
Nashville Predators: A Better Physical Presence
The Nashville Predators come into the season as perhaps the closest parallel to last season’s Washington Capitals. They are the defending Presidents’ Trophy champions and lost to arguably the second-best team in the league in the second round.
Most outside observers would likely point to Pekka Rinne’s poor play during the postseason as the reason the Predators lost. Unfortunately, considering how good and deep Nashville’s defense is, there is really no way to fix that other than Rinne stepping up his game.
A more under-the-radar reason for the loss, and one that may be simpler to fix, pertains to Nashville’s special teams. As On the Forecheck’s Alex Daugherty pointed out:
"The Preds had the second most penalty kill time of every team that didn’t make the conference finals (62 minutes) and were shorthanded 39 times in 13 games… At the same time, the power play wasn’t getting nearly the chances in the playoffs that it was in the regular season."
Compare this to Washington’s special teams last season. After having a penalty differential of -25 in the regular season, the Capitals had an even differential during the postseason. That is significantly better than Nashville’s performance, as Daugherty wrote.
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What can this be attributed to for Washington? Primarily, the referees traditionally look to keep things even during the playoffs, more so than in the regular season for sure. That helps explain why Washington and Nashville had similar penalty differentials during the playoffs.
When referees are trying to keep penalty calls even, that is the best situation for a physical team to take advantage. That does not mean playing dirty, but with referees calling penalties less often, it definitely means players can make more hits without fear of reprisal.
The Capitals followed this strategy to a T, on the backs of Tom Wilson, Devante Smith Pelly, and other players who were major contributors in the playoff run. Their physicality opened up the ice for skill players and wore down the other team.
With regards to penalties, this same physicality led to their team going shorthanded, but it also meant that Washington’s elite power play was given more power play opportunities when the referees looked to even things up.
This is the main lesson the Predators can learn from the Washington Capitals. A better physical presence across the lineup will help to mitigate the speed and skill of their primary Western Conference opponents.