It's tough enough to win in the NHL without spotting your opponent a goal or two. But that is exactly what the Washington Capitals have been doing for most of the month of November, and it has to stop if they expect to have any kind of joyful holiday season.

Before their 5-4 loss at Toronto on Tuesday, the Capitals struggled against the Atlanta Thrashers, finally surviving with a 6-3 victory and breaking a five-game winless streak -- but not before they fell behind, 2-0, in the first period.

Mind you, it came just a day after first-year coach Bruce Cassidy publicly warned that the team had to have a strong start.

"We are not ready to play the game, and that is unacceptable," said Washington general manager George McPhee. "This is not a matter of coaching or learning a new system or anything. It's just a matter of the players not being ready to play when the game begins.

"A team HAS to be ready. There are NO excuses for that. You can't point the finger at anybody other than the players."

This season, the Capitals have been outscored 20-9 in the first period.

"We haven't seemed to play hard enough until WE thought it was absolutely necessary," said McPhee. "But in this league, you can't do that. If we played hard from start to finish it would be a different story."

The Capitals have the skilled offensive players to stage rapid comebacks, especially on the power play. But even that has slumped.

"Our biggest problem is the power play really went stale for two to three weeks," said McPhee, whose team has been among the top five in the NHL power-play rankings in each of the past three seasons. "It's worth at least a goal and a game, and we're not getting it."

The Capitals, who were just 4-for-their-last-30 entering their game with Atlanta, scored three power-play goals against the Thrashers

Michael Nylander, who was acquired on Nov. 1 from Chicago for Chris Simon and Andrei Nikolishin, scored one of his two goals in the game on the man advantage. With 10 points in 10 games, he's proving to be everything the Caps wanted at center.

But still, the power play has struggled.

It's a difficult concept to grasp when considering the presence of Jaromir Jagr, Peter Bondra and Robert Lang. It's more understandable given the Capitals' defensemen have generated only one goal this season, making setting up a decent power play a bit of a challenge.

Thus, the Caps are working on some different tactics on the power play, including setting up from the opposite side of the box. In the end, they'll discover what every team eventually does: No matter how talented forwards are they need shots from the point to be set loose.

On the positive side, Jagr has been easy to deal with this season -- a relief considering what he could do to a rookie coach in the NHL -- and goalie Olaf Kolzig has been steady.

"I really still don't have a feel for this team yet," said McPhee, "I know they know what has to be done, we'll see what gets done."

Al Morganti covers the NHL for ESPN.