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Is there any reason at all for Capitals skepticism? (Trending Topics

Washington Capitals’ Brett Connolly (10) celebrates with teammate Jakub Vrana (13) after scoring a goal during the second period of an NHL hockey game as New York Rangers’ Oscar Lindberg (24) skates away, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Washington Capitals’ Brett Connolly (10) celebrates with teammate Jakub Vrana (13) after scoring a goal during the second period of an NHL hockey game as New York Rangers’ Oscar Lindberg (24) skates away, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

The biggest splash in the run-up to the trade deadline was undoubtedly the one made by the team that was already the best in the league.

When the Washington Capitals got Kevin Shattenkirk it addressed a need the team has kinda-sorta had for a while now, which is defensive depth. While Washington was always going to be able to count on goals coming throughout the lineup (more so this year than ever, as Alex Ovechkin slows down), a D corps with Karl Alzner as the No. 3 behind two first-pairing guys in John Carlson and Matt Niskanen was always running at least something of a risk.

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With Shattenkirk — another top-pairing talent with a power play specialist role — as the No. 3 instead, and the shuffling down the lineup of all the other guys behind him, the Caps D goes from formidable to one of the best in the league pretty quickly. And if Shattenkirk’s first game in Washington is any indication, he’s going to have a huge impact on the offense through the final 20 games and into the playoffs.

The joke about the Capitals will always be that they don’t make it out of the second round, right up until they make it out of the second round. And even then, people will still have a, “They’re gonna blow it,” attitude more or less until Gary Bettman hands Alex Ovechkin the Stanley Cup. It’s understandable to some extent, and at this point I’m starting to wonder how well-founded that skepticism still is.

This is a team that has been very good for a very long time. They have elite talent at every position. Even with Ovechkin not scoring nearly as much as he used to, Nicklas Backstrom remains one the best centers in the world, Evgeny Kuznetsov still dazzles, T.J. Oshie and Marcus Johansson are probably going to threaten 60 points or so, and you can keep going down the list. If your No. 6 points producer (the ageless Justin Williams) is a borderline 45- to 50-point producer, you’re in great shape.

The D has been addressed above, but again, there’s a lot to be said for this group. And of course they’re playing in front of Braden Holtby, having arguably the best season of any goaltender in the league outside of the Twin Cities. Holtby’s at .929, which is electrifying. And his backup Philipp Grubauer is .927, so even when he does get into a game, there isn’t much of a dropoff at all.

If this isn’t the most talented team in the league, it’s second instead. You can make arguments for Pittsburgh instead but not much beyond that. And obviously having high-level talent, especially on your power play and in the crease, can take you a long way.

The Capitals have the sixth-ranked PK in the league and the fifth-best power play. Even if they weren’t playing great hockey at 5-on-5 — which they are — high-level special teams like that is going to take you a long way.

With that having been said, some people have wisely pointed out that the Capitals’ PDO is extremely high, and that can make it a lot more difficult to win games reliably.

Going into Thursday night’s games, the Capitals had the highest PDO in the league at more than 104.3. If that number holds up, or even comes close to doing so, it will be the highest combined 5-on-5 shooting and save percentage a team has every had in an 82-game schedule. The next-closest team on the list is the equally talented 2009-10 Caps, but they’re still a full point lower (103.3).

I’m willing to chalk a lot of that PDO up to Holtby’s goaltending talent, though slightly less so to Grubauer’s (he’s good but he’s not .927 good, is he?). I’ll even take into account that the Capitals might have the talent to sustainably shoot well above the league average; their current 10.2 percent would be the second-highest ever observed, behind that same 2009-10 team. The good news is that even if it drops off, they’ve already scored the goals, and banked a ton of points. And unless it craters, they’re probably still going to shoot somewhere near the league average.

But the other thing to keep in mind with PDO is that it’s fickle. How many teams — albeit worse than the Capitals — have ridden high PDOs for 60 games only to disastrous ends? That’s not to say an entire Capitals team can become snake-bit, or conversely that Alex Ovechkin couldn’t go on some next-level goalscoring bender for 10 or 15 games. And in general, you’d want to bet against a team with a 10-plus percent shooting success rate to keep that up.

The good news for the Capitals, and bad news for those expecting a drop-off any time soon, is that the kind of game they’ve been playing for months now is still one of the very best in the league. In terms of shot quality, the Capitals could expect to have scored an adjusted 52.3 percent of all the 5-on-5 goals in their games so far. That’s good for seventh in the league. And while you might rightly consider “seventh” to be a little outside elite-level production, the fact is that the talent they have everywhere is always going to keep them above that level, just as a lack of talent is going to keep the Bruins from meeting their league-leading expected-goals of 55.8 percent.

Barry Trotz’s system is sound, and the players are executing it quite well. The team is third in their share of adjusted shot attempts, fourth in unblocked attempts, eighth in scoring chances, third in shots on goal. Do they take too many penalties? Yup, they have the worst penalty differential in the league (minus-34, yikes) and that’s something to tighten up as well.

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If the only real criticism of the Capitals boils down to “they take too many penalties” and “they should probably only score 55 percent of the goals in their games, instead of 64 percent,” well, you’re not wrong.

But maybe this is the year it won’t matter. Not that I’m holding my breath or anything.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All stats via Corsica unless otherwise stated.

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