Innately superstitious, Karl Alzner cut off the question before it could even be finished. Standing in a ballroom in the Washington Capitals’ midtown Manhattan hotel on Friday, Alzner was asked if the penalty kill unit had spoken at all about its highly successful start to the postseason.
“No,” Alzner said, clamming up as the question continued. “We don’t. [We] just go out there and try to block shots and dump pucks. That’s about it. Sorry.”
The Capitals had gone 17-for-17 against the power play during the first eight games of their postseason, including a perfect 14-for-14 in their seven-game first-round series against the New York Islanders. That unit’s productivity was a large reason why Washington advanced to the second round to face the New York Rangers.
But on Saturday, a day after Alzner was confronted with his team’s success, the hull breached. Rangers defenseman Dan Boyle scored the first power-play goal against the Capitals this postseason, flinging a wrister past a screen and into the near top corner of the net at 15:40 of the first period.
No team, since the league began expanding in 1967, had endured penalties over its first nine playoff games and come out clean on the other side. Washington, playing its ninth game of the postseason, would kill off two more before the day had ended, pushing its start to 19-for-20 heading into Game 3 of the series on Monday.
“When a penalty comes, the penalty killers go out there and try to do a job, just like the power play tries to go out for us when they take a penalty and try to put one in the back of their net,” said Jay Beagle, part of the top penalty-kill unit with center Eric Fehr unavailable because of an injury. “You don’t pay attention to streaks and that stuff at this time of the year. We’ve got to get a job done. We’re playing well on the P.K. and we’ve got to keep it going.”
Boyle’s goal was the product of an unfortunate circumstance for the Capitals. Troy Brouwer was deep in the left corner when he snagged the puck, and his attempt to clear it glanced off of referee Dan O’Halloran before decelerating to a hearty slog because of ice shavings along the kick plate.
That allowed Boyle to pinch it just in front of the blue line, and while Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby saw Boyle shoot the puck, he lost it behind a screen from Rick Nash.
“The referees are part of the environment on the ice — between the glass, if you will — and things are going to happen like that,” coach Barry Trotz said Monday morning. “It was really a seeing-eye puck, and it hit the perfect spot with a little bit of a screen. I think it’s easier to flush [when that happens].”
Washington killed off 81.2 percent of opponents’ power plays during the regular season, ranking a mere 14th in the league, but showed signs of strength at times, including a five-game stretch in late March when it neutralized each advantage.
The Rangers, meanwhile, were 21st on the power play during the regular season, scoring with the advantage 16.8 percent of the time, and were 3-for-20 in their five-game first-round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
“We’ve done a good job throughout the entire playoffs of limiting other team’s opportunities on the P.P., and you know, we’ve got to continue to do that,” Brouwer said. “I think we killed off two more after that as well, so we bounced back, did a good job, and we’re going to have to rely on our kill to get a couple more stops and keep us in games.”
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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