State Of The Capitals: Inside Their Turnaround & How Ovechkin & His Teammates Found A Spark

After starting the year 1-3-1, the Capitals have won six of the last eight games. Here's what's going right and a dive into the team's turnaround on multiple levels.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Washington Capitals were lost, with critics urging the team to hit the panic button in a search for answers. But now, it's a completely different story, as head coach Spencer Carbery has appeared to resurrect Washington.

After starting the year 1-3-1, the Capitals have won six of the last eight games, with one of those losses coming in regulation (a 3-0 loss to the New York Islanders following the news of Nicklas Backstrom's depature) and the other an overtime loss (a 4-3 OT defeat to the Florida Panthers after some poor reads and mistakes). And utliamtely, things are starting to come together at both ends of the ice.

It's a huge lift for Washington, and perhaps a bit of a surprising one, considering the team's ongoing injury situation that has only gotten worse over the last couple of games and the team also dealing with multiple waved-off goals over the last handful of games.

So, what's working?

Well, there's a lot that goes into it, and it begins with execution. The Capitals are getting more in sync with their systems with each game that goes by, and Carbery is continuing to experiment and find what works up at different levels.

The 5-on-5 offense is also finally starting to click, and a lot of that is thanks to strong all-around play beyond Alex Ovechkin and the team's top-6 stars.

While Ovechkin hasn't been finding twine all too much, he leads his team in scoring with 11 points in 13 games, and his two-goal outing against the New York Islanders should help provide some confidnece. Evgeny Kuznetsov and Tom Wilson have also been impressive with eight points in 13 outings, and that new top line appears to be clicking well and helping ignite a spark. At the same time, Dylan Strome has picked up six goals for his team.

As mentioned, though, it's not just the top-6 stepping up. McMichael has been a force to be reckoned with, as his speed and stickhandling have put him on the radar this seaosn and have helped him generate some strong plays. He and Aliaksei Protas have found some good chemistry as well, and the youth overall is stepping up.

"It's huge opportunity for us to see what we have for future and if somebody goes down, somebody get hurt or something happen, we can put another guy in and they gonna play solid and not gonna mess it up," Ovechkin said of the team's younger pieces.

Right now, though, the biggest solution for Washington's woes has been finally rediscovering their identity fourth line, which had dominated the league for the last few seasons.

Amid injuries to Anthony Mantha and with Nic Dowd returning after missing nine games with injury, the team ran with a fourth-line combiantion of Dowd, Beck Malenstyn and Nicolas Aube-Kubel. And at the end of the day, that trio was the key peice to the puzzle.

All three are reliable in the defensive zone, but they've also combined for six points over the last two games and have been driving pressure consistently. It's exactly what Carbery and the Capitals needed.

“if we’re gonna continue with the three that we have right now, we’re just gonna look to build and kind of learn from each other," Dowd said.

The offense still has ways to go though, and it's impossible to mention Washington's turnaround without mentioning the major improvement on defense.

Washington's blue line was not operating on the same page to start the year, with Carbery's early pairings struggling to click and get much going. Carbery seemed to strike a balance on his defensive pairs, but recent injuries to Martin Fehervary and Trevor van Riemsdyk led him to go back to the drawing board. Despite that, though, the blue line has been strong, and a lot of that is owed to the surging play of a few key d-men.

John Carlson has been strong offensively and continues to rack up points, and he's also leading all skaters in ice time while taking on more responsibility and providing stability on the ice. Then, there's Rasmus Sandin, who has points in three of his last four games and is starting to bust out and establish himself as a top-4 blueliner after a slow start. Nick Jensen's also rediscovered the play that earned him an extension, which is also helping Washington's case.

Beyond the strong play of certain players, though, everyone is sacrificing the body and stepping up big in front, blocking shots and putting everything on the line to help their netminders. It's that play that helped not only shut down the New York Islanders on Saturday, but the Columbus Blue Jackets a week prior.

"Everybody was sticking up for everybody," Ovechkin said. "Blocking shots, play smart, play simple and we get results."

Perhaps the biggest improvement, though, gas been the penalty kill. After a lackluster start to the year, Washington's PK has been flawless over the last eight games, killing off 18 straight penalties over that span that correlates exactly with the team's hot streak.

What's even more impressive there is that Dowd has only been back for two games now; without him, Washington saw its youth rise to the occasion, with Beck Malenstyn, Connor McMichael and Aliaksei Protas all taking on big roles there and making the most of that extra responsibility. The Capitals have also managed two shorthanded goals, with McMichael and Tom Wilson striking at 4-on-5.

"The PK's been a huge part of my game this year. It's been allowing me to contribute in different ways, get more ice time and earn that trust from Carbs," McMichael said.

Washington has also benefitted from its goaltending situation, as Charlie Lindgren is establishing himself as a reliable option and doing what he can to earn more starts. Hunter Shepard, who started on Saturday with Lindgren playing the night before and Darcy Kuemper ailing, also put on a show to help Washington capture its sixth win in eight games. 

Kuemper has won three of those eight outings, while Shepard and Lindgren have combined for four victories. Lindgren is also forcing Carbery's hand a bit, as his standout performance is making the bench boss consider a change to their goaltending appraoch, which may become more even split going forward.

At the end of the day, the Captials were a team in transition and dealing with growing pains, and now that they've seen the light at the end of the tunnel and have started to read off one another, it appears the everything's aligning. Now, it's just a matter of staying stable and staying consistent to keep those good times rolling.