ARLINGTON, V.A. — There's no sugar coating it for the Washington Capitals, and Spencer Carbery didn't mince words: special teams has not been a highlight to start the season.

Through the first 10 games of the season, the Capitals are just 6-for-32 on the power play (18.8 percent). They struggle to enter the zone and get set up, and maintaining possession has also been a problem.

It's gotten to the point where coach Spencer Carbery continues to make changes, and acknowledged that the man advantage opportunities have actually come to work against D.C. so far.

"The power has not been nearly good enough... you just need some momentum on those power plays, and it kills momentum," Carbery said bluntly.

Those struggles are also bleeding over onto the penalty kill. Washington's PK has ranked atop the league over the last few seasons, but right now, it ranks sixth-worst in the league at 67.9 percent and has given up nine goals through 10 games.

"I feel like it's been a little bit unlucky, but when you look at some of the underlying numbers, we've kind of got what we deserved in how many Grade-A opportunities that were given up," Carbery said.

That being the case, the Capitals worked on special teams quite a bit on Thursday, trying out some new looks up front.

Aliaksei Protas was promoted to the top unit, and operated there with John Carlson, Alex Ovechkin, Connor McMichael and Dylan Strome, who upgraded to contact for power-play work as he recovers from a lower-body injury. On the second unit, Hendrix Lapierre joined the mix of Jakob Chychrun, Ryan Leonard, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tom Wilson, who swapped places with Protas.

The tweaks give the Capitals the chance to evenly deploy two separate units and generate some new looks with different personnel.

"We're just looking at some deployment stuff and how we can potentially utilize two units, potentially use 10 or nine guys equally and potentially use a second unit. We're looking at a bunch of different options," Carbery explained. "You're not asking to score every time you go on the power play, but you want to spend some time in the o-zone. You want to threaten the goaltender with a couple of shots in traffic, some puck recovery, some won face-offs, all of those things."

On the kill, the same players are being relied upon to step up, with Nic Dowd and Brandon Duhaime leading the charge. However, Carbery stressed urgency and a turnaround when it comes to the kill's performance — and quick.

"We've got to tighten up there. We've talked about it, looked at some different things, talked to some personnel, had a few meetings," Carbery said. "We'll continue to dial that in and make sure that we're continuing to progress on the kill and also the power play."

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Washington faces the New York Islanders at home on Friday before paying a visit to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.