Penguins - Caps Fallout: X's & O's Breaking down the Power Play's big night

The Penguins rolled to a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals Thursday night and the Penguins are flying high and playing with a swagger that makes them hard to be beat.

What we've seen over the past five games is the Penguins be able to deflate teams, showing quick strike ability and scoring momentum changing goals.

"The big thing was the couple games at home here early where we didn't play well," winger James Neal said. "It was kind of an eye opener early in the season and I think we're glad that happened early. We got that out of the way, and we've had a different mindset ever since. We've been playing some good hockey, and hopefully we can keep it going."

"I think right now, we're just confident in the way we're playing," Sidney Crosby said. "We believe in the way we're playing and we know that at the end of the game we'll hopefully get the result we want."

The Penguins transition game was excellent and a deflated Capitals team had now answers.

"There's not a whole lot of confidence in our abilities right now," Capitals forward Troy Brouwer told reporters afterwards. "We did look deflated because we were."

The biggest development for the Penguins Thursday night was the power play getting three goals and the puck movement was sensational.

"The power play was great tonight," Neal said. As long as everybody is working and we're shooting the puck, good things will happen. We got some great goals off it tonight."

"The power play probably our best couple power plays of the year in that period {second}," head coach Dan Bylsma said. "Moved the puck really well, won faceoffs right from the start, and moved the puck crisply. We were dangerous."

How the play Developed: The only three people to touch the puck on this goal was Sidney Crosby, Paul Martin and Evgeni Malkin. Crosby won the draw back to Paul Martin and what the Penguins had was quick movement. As Crosby won the draw back to Martin, the puck would go back to Crosby, back to Martin and then back to Crosby where Crosby makes a quick seam pass to Malkin who walked in with space and beat Michal Neuvirth glove side for a beautiful goal. "The seam pass from Crosby to Malkin that first goal was as good of shot as you're going to see. Impressive shot," Bylsma said.

Key Breakdown: A common issue for the Penguins with Kris Letang running the top of the point has been the Penguins getting stationary. On this particular goal, that wasn't the case. On Martin's quick back and fourth passing to Crosby on the right side, it got the Capitals running out of position as Joey Crabb was too aggressive in the box trying to pressure to Martin at the top of the point, which gave Crosby an open passing lane through the middle of the box, leading to his seam pass over to Malkin for the goal.