Washington is a good defensive team – they are better than league-average at suppressing opponent shots across the board:
| SA/60 | 5v5 | 4v5 | 3v5 | 4v4 |
| Avg | 29.8 | 51.0 | 122.1 | 32.7 |
| Wsh | 27.7 | 47.1 | 108.0 | 30.1 |
But they have not been better than average in goal:
| Sv% | 5v5 | 4v5 | 3v5 | 4v4 |
| Avg | 0.919 | 0.880 | 0.757 | 0.900 |
| Wsh | 0.916 | 0.894 | 0.938 | 0.886 |
As others have noted, special teams save % is much less ability-driven than even-strength save %, no doubt because teams spend about 48 minutes per game at even-strength compared to roughly six down a man, and 0.2 down two men.
Washington may have in Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth a pair of goaltenders who add up to league-average if they split time 50/50. But Varlamov has a nagging injury that limits his availability and resulted in the Caps giving 1/8 of their playing time so far to a goalie who’s not ready for prime time. You can’t pretend that didn’t happen.
EDIT: Let's run through Washington's goaltending scenario:
Varlamov – career .930 SV% @ even-strength. Likely higher than his true talent (few goalies have talent this high) but let's credit him with it anyways.
Neuvirth – career .916 SV% @ ES. Possibly true talent.
Neuvirth starts 45 games; Varlamov gets periodically injured, but starts 30 games when he's healthy; and the remaining 7 games are filled by replacement level (.890.) What do we get?
A .919 even-strength save percentage, which is below the league-average. It doesn't matter that a 100% healthy Varlamov would be above-average.
