April 4 vs. Buffalo Sabres at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Buffalo Sabres (46-22-8)
Washington Capitals (38-29-9)
The Caps play their penultimate home game of the 2025-26 season on Saturday night at Capital One Arena when they close out their three-game season series with the Buffalo Sabres. The two teams split the first two meetings of the season, both of which took place in Buffalo. Saturday’s game also starts the Caps’ penultimate set of back-to-back games in the 2025-26 season; they will be on the move to Manhattan immediately after facing the Sabres; Washington has a Sunday night engagement with the Rangers in New York.
Washington enters Saturday’s game in dire need of standings points. With less than two weeks remaining in the season, the Caps are still fighting to claw their way into a playoff berth, but those chances took a hit with Thursday’s 7-3 loss to the Devils in New Jersey. The Caps carried a modest three-game winning streak into that game, but for the third time in just over two months, they couldn’t extend a three-game winning streak.
New Jersey grabbed an early 2-0 lead but the Caps battled back to draw even at 2-2 before the midpoint of the first period. The Devils’ dynamic duo of Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt took it from there; Hughes (two goals, three assists) and Bratt (one goal, four assists) each had five-point games by factoring into each of the Devils’ last five goals.
Hughes has been slicing through NHL defenses like hot butter since returning from the Olympics where he scored the golden goal for Team USA; he has 32 points (12 goals, 20 assists) in 18 games since returning. Only Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov (33) has more points over that span.
“It's a challenge,” says Caps center P-L Dubois of containing the Devils’ duo, “but it's mistakes that in April can't be made over and over again. It’s tough; they're good players, obviously, and it's a challenge. But we want to make the playoffs. It has to be done.”
While the Caps were banging away at rebounds and jamming at loose pucks in New Jersey’s end of the ice, trying to close the deficit with the Devils over the final 40 minutes, New Jersey seemed to score at will, as it has for more than a month now. The Devils’ rate of 3.94 goals per game since Feb. 28 is tops in the NHL.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that though,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “It doesn’t look like Jack Hughes is working that hard at all, but he is. He’s just that effortless when he goes through the neutral zone and picks apart two guys and makes them miss. So, it doesn’t look like he is working that hard, but he is, and he is putting you in a real vulnerable spot.
“So, that leads to the Dougie Hamilton goal [that put the Devils ahead for good late in the first]. That leads to not necessarily the 2-on-1s and the breakaways, but it leads to long [offensive] zone shifts for them, and that was a problem for us tonight, throughout the game.
“And then obviously, when we’re trailing in the game, we get momentum and we come back and we still fight. But right there, it’s just a little bit too much to overcome.”
There were a few bright spots for the Caps in Thursday’s loss. Cole Hutson scored his second goal in eight NHL games, and the 19-year-old now has six points (two goals, four assists) to join Timo Blomqvist as just the second Washington blueliner ever to record six points in his first 10 NHL games. Hutson also logged 18:48 in ice time – his second highest single-game workload – and was one of only two Caps to finish with a + for the game; defense partner Matt Roy and Hutson were both plus-1 on the night.
Since 2005-06, Hutson is the 10th teenaged defenseman to roll up as many as six points in his first 10 NHL games. Only two teenaged NHL defensemen – Phil Housley and Zach Werenski – had 10 points in 10 games as teens.
Dubois scored a power-play goal in the first period to extend the Caps’ streak to four straight games with at least one power-play goal, their second longest streak of the season. From Oct. 14-24, Washington struck for at least one power-play goal in five straight games.
And finally, Tom Wilson scored his 28th goal of the season in the third period, moving him to within two goals of a second straight season of 30 or more goals. Wilson could become the first Capital not named Alex Ovechkin to record consecutive 30-goal seasons since Alexander Semin turned the trick with 34 goals in 2008-09 and 40 in 2009-10.
What stings the most in the aftermath of Thursday’s setback is the missed opportunity to gain ground on a couple of the teams the Caps need to claw their way past if they’re going to eke their way into one of those eighth Eastern Conference playoff berths. The Caps emerged from Thursday’s setback still three points shy of the second wild card playoff berth, but a win would have moved them to within a single point, and they would have nudged past Philadelphia, one of four teams standing between them and their goal.
“Our backs are against the wall now,” says Wilson, who had a goal and an assist in Thursday’s game. “This one stings. We were playing pretty good hockey, but I think we’ve got to throw this one out quickly, have a short memory, and move forward.”
The Caps fell to the Sabres in a shootout way back on Nov. 1, and they went into Buffalo again on March 12 and managed to cool the red-hot Sabres by a 2-1 count in the back half of a set of back-to-back games.
Charlie Lindgren was the primary driver of Washington’s success in that game, making 29 saves to earn his ninth win of the season.
“We beat Buffalo when we were in Buffalo,” says Dubois. “They're playing well too, since [Olympic] break, so it'll be a good challenge for us. But at midnight, we’ve got to move on and get ready for the next one.”
The Sabres also enter Saturday’s game on the heels of a loss, a rare occurrence for the hottest team in the NHL since the end of the Olympic break (14-3-2). Buffalo’s March 12 loss to the Caps ended an eight-game winning streak, and the Sabres promptly reeled off four more wins in the wake of that setback.
Along with Washington, Detroit and Ottawa are the only teams to defeat Buffalo in regulation since the break. The Senators were the most recent team to do so, they dropped the Sabres 4-1 in Ottawa on Thursday night.
