How is it even possible for our PP to get worse?
i know the power play has been a sore point for people for awhile. But the Caps have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps recently to get themselves back up to the middle of the pack on the PP - AND we are #4 in the league on the PK, so special teams is actually a net plus for us.
Now look at the Islanders' special teams - THERE'S a team whose fans have a right to wring their hands in frustration!!
The chances of a comeback like this last season would have been virtually zero - with or without Ovechkin. But so much has changed for this team offensively over the past year. Our shooting percentage is likely unsustainable, but even with some regression toward the mean, we are still a lot better off now. This might be a first glimpse of life post-Ovie, and it doesn't look like a disaster/rebuild, necessarily.
Someone here commented a few weeks ago about our pretty tough schedule, back-to-backs, etc. during November, and said we'd know a lot more about the team at the end of the month. Well, here we are, we've gone 6-3 since that point, the last 5 without Ovie, and we're still standing.