PK for the past six games

The statistical sample is certainly kinda small but I absolutely agree that the PK is much more aggressive and this is probably the reason. At least one of the major reasons (not that I clearly see any other).

The only team that has legit offense though is Chicago. So while I agree it has looked better, it has looked better against weak SE teams, not Sharks/Pens teams.

But I am cautiously optimistic. If we fix the PK and Theo continues his lights out playing, there is no better team.

Best strategy for PK for the Caps - just stay out of the freaking box.

That being said, I think they generally do better with an aggressive PK. Every once in a while, there’s a mistake made which results in 5 on 3 for the other team. Still, all in all, an aggressive PK works better for them.

To quote Locker, “you always need your goalie to be your best penalty killer.” Theo’s been great. Part of the problem on PK has been weak shots getting through, poor rebound control, or an inability to freeze the puck. Theo has been ridiculous recently and I think that has made a bigger difference on our PK than Corvo or Belanger.

That said, I would agree that the forwards/d-men look to be playing a bit better on the PK recently, but we’ve had good spurts of PK before so I’m not ready to say they’ve figured it out just yet.

Seems to me like although we’ve been killing penalties, our opponents are still spending too long in the offensive zone. The PK has looked more aggressive to me, but I don’t feel like we’re clearing the puck any better. I’m leaning more towards strong goaltending as the reason for the better numbers. Would be interested to see whether the numbers on PK ice time in the defensive zone have gotten any better since the trades. I’m betting they haven’t.

I think most of the difference has been the forwards. And I’d like to make a distinction between “aggressive” penalty killing and having forwards that keep their momentum going.

We know what (our) passive PKing looks like. The problem was that often when we went to active mode it just meant forwards taking straight lines at puck carriers. That eliminated the shot option but made initial passes easy, and made the second pass very easy. Aggressive just meant “gets a player out of position quickly.” For other teams they try to keep forwards moving more, but they almost never take straight lines at the puck carrier. Instead they come from an angle, deny one of the passing lanes, deny the shot as they get close enough, and have momentum to reposition once the puck moves. Plus your momentum is likely going in the direction the pass just went to, and your PKing forward teammate can have a better read on where a pass might go if you shut down one of the lanes.

It was clear watching the Olympics that this is the way you can do it when you have elite skaters. I haven’t seen enough of our full games lately to say how much more we’ve been doing this, but I have seen the forwards do it more. If I had to give a reason for why we haven’t done it more I would cite poor skating ability of the forwards, especially David Steckel.

Like i’ve said a million times now, the entire PK scheme has changed.
It used to be a diamond shaped sorta deal, with 1 guy somewhere between the points, 2 guys somewhere around the face off dots, and a man in the mouth or in the office.
Now, the PK has one guy at the top of the face off circle(weak side) with the strong side forward at the point, the other two stay near the slot/goal mouth to clear the interference/ cover any inside shot.

It has worked well to minimize bombs from the point and clear traffic; however, it allows for shots to come from the circles, opposing teams to work from behind the goal, and sometimes gets caught up rightt infront of the goal.
The guys infront of the net neeeed to get sticks in passing lanes, get big to shot block, keep track of the guys infront of the net, and above all else, clear any puck that gets close. The guy at the point puts pressure before any bombs go towards Jose. The 4th man around the high slot covers the weak side point/half wall. And Jose has to make the saves that come from relatively close up shots, which i feel like he does ALOT better than make saves from the point.