The Washington Capitals will look quite different entering the season, and with several new pieces in their arsenal, special teams are expected to get a makeover, too.
Washington overhauled roughly a third of its roster this season, bringing in the likes of Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jakob Chychrun and several other pieces. And looking at the new roster, head coach Spencer Carbery said it’ll be interesting to see how the power play and penalty kill come together.
“That’ll probably be one of the biggest question marks going in and how we figure out the line combinations,” Carbery said.
Carbery hinted that the power play will be interesting to keep an eye on with all the new additions after a roller coaster of a past season on the man advantage.
Washington’s power play started off on a rough note and was the sixth-worst man advantage in the up until right before the NHL All-Star Break. After Jan. 24, it ranked best in the league, operating at 27.9 percent.
Carbery said this year, Kirk Muller will have more pieces to work with to support Alex Ovechkin, including Dubois and Chychrun and other names like Andrew Mangiapane.
“Do we have Stromer, Dubois, a bunch of lefties out there?” Carbery added. “We’ll really want to get a good grasp on what our special teams, especially our power play, looks like.”
As for the penalty kill, new free agent signing Brandon Duhaime is expected to join Nic Dowd and take on a big role on the PK to replace Beck Malenstyn, who was traded at the 2024 NHL Draft so that D.C. could select Cole Hutson.