Watching the Washington Capitals so far this season has been like watching a team on a seesaw.

The team managed to get off to a good start, winning six of their first eight games to start the season. But then the team slumped, losing four-straight (for the first time since the 23-24 season), before rebounding Wednesday for a dominant win against the Blues. But then Thursday night in Pittsburgh happened, and we're right back on the other side of the seesaw. 

Perhaps we were spoiled by last season's team, which is largely the same as THIS season's team (with a few exceptions). Last year's Caps came out swinging from the start and never really let up. None of the wins were perfect by any means, but great teams find ways to win no matter what. 

The main difference between last season and this season seems to be consistency, especially on special teams. The power play is already a hot button issue that has been discussed ad nauseam, but this seesaw effect applies to the penalty kill as well. Some games, the PK unit seems to kill penalties with ease, and on other nights, we get what we saw in Pittsburgh. 

Great teams find ways to win. And for a moment on Thursday, it looked as if the Capitals were going to find that way despite their PK spotting Pittsburgh a strong lead. But in the end, the PK cost them valuable points, and just added more questions to this team that is struggling to find its identity.

What the numbers say

After Thursday's loss to the Penguins, the Capitals currently hold a 72.7% penalty kill rating, good for ninth-worst in the league, and only marginally better than the young upstart San Jose Sharks. 

Breaking that percentage down and looking at each individual game, you can really see the seesaw effect. 

In some of these games, the Caps PK holds down the fort. On others, it has literally cost them games. I will concede that it's difficult to fault the penalty kill for a loss to Dallas (where the only goal scored in the whole game was on a Stars' PP), as it's not helpful when the team couldn't muster any goals for. But this does give you a visual of the inconsistency of the Capitals penalty kill so far this season. 

Looking at more numbers, the Caps have allowed 32 high danger scoring chances while on the penalty kill. Compare that to 40 high danger chances allowed by (somehow league best PK) Buffalo Sabres, and the 20 high danger chances allowed by the league worst PK in Ottawa.

It's tough to glean anything from that bit of information, but shows that the Caps are seeing about the same amount of high danger chances against and are struggling to keep the puck out of the net at times. 

What's the fix?

This is a bit of a tough question to answer, because the answer is "be more consistent," but it's obviously much more nuanced than that. 

One of the biggest things this team needs to do is pay more attention to the details. Something Spencer Carbery is generally applauded for is his attention to detail, so hopefully that starts to trickle down to the team itself. 

Discipline plays a role for sure. Players can comment on the referees and the kinds of calls they make, but in the end, it's important to play a disciplined game and stay out of the box. 

But the attention to detail; corralling the puck and getting effective clears out of the zone, not turning it over in the defensive zone, and covering passing lanes effectively are all necessary details to killing penalties when a mistake is made.

But most of all, yes it's consistency that will win games in the end. This team has to work on being consistently good on all sides of the puck and in all scenarios. Including the PK.