Caps Clash with Pens on Friday Night in Pittsburgh
The Caps start the February portion of their slate in Pittsburgh, where they'll face the red-hot Penguins
By
Mike Vogel
WashingtonCaps.com
When the Capitals last met the Pittsburgh Penguins on Nov. 10 in Washington, they were an 8-7-1 hockey team and the Pens were just a shade better at 9-6-2. The two longtime rivals and Metropolitan Division dwellers were two among seven Metro teams clustered within just three points of one another going into that game nearly three months ago.
Pittsburgh and New Jersey were tied for the Metro lead back then, just over a month into the 2017-18 NHL regular season. A lot of hockey has been played since, and the Caps have managed to climb to the top of the division standings since that date, with Pittsburgh just behind them.
Now, the Caps will start off their February slate with the first of their two visits to the Steel City this season, facing the Pens in Pittsburgh on Friday night.
After playing just 10 games in a span of 33 days from Dec. 31-Feb. 1, the Caps will play their final 32 games in a span of 65 days, offering the team a more rhythmic routine over the final two months of the season.
"It's going to get really busy really fast here," says Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen. "It was kind of a unique month with the schedule there, so now we get back into a routine here of playing almost every other day for a month or so."
With Wednesday's 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers in Washington, the Capitals have managed to navigate their way through a spotty January schedule with points in eight of 10 games (6-2-2), and they'll start February with a bigger lead in the Metro standings (six points) than they had at the start of January (one point).
This is the third straight season in which Washington will roll into February with the lead in the Metropolitan Division standings. They carried a five-point lead into February last year, and they owned a whopping 15-point bulge over their nearest pursuer two years ago.
While these last 30 games or so of the regular season are important, they're not as important as the playoff games that follow. With that in mind, what might the Caps have learned over the last couple of seasons that might help them get their overall team game to its peak prior to the playoffs?
"The biggest thing I think is to individually push yourself to try to keep making improvements where you can," says Niskanen. "The last two seasons with the lead we had [in the standings], it was pretty easy to get complacent for periods of time. With the standings the way they are now, I don't think we're going to have that luxury. It's going to be pretty tight down the stretch here. We're going to have some tough games, so that part will help, but as individuals, we have to push ourselves to get to a higher level."
"No one will ever admit to thinking about peaking at the right time," says Caps right wing Tom Wilson. "Our identity is taking every game as important as it is. The next 30 [games] are crunch time. In September, you'd like to fast forward and go right to this time of year. It's a long year and you've got to go through all of the trials of the year, and now it's crunch time. It's the exciting part of the year. We have 30 games to make sure our game is in order.
"I think we have to look at it as a building time and to continue to build. You don't want to be peaking now; you want to make sure that your game is hitting its stride come the playoffs. We're in a bit of a race because the division is so tight, so we're going to have to keep on winning. Hopefully we can carry that right into the playoffs."
The Penguins are hitting their stride now as well. After winning only four of its last dozen games in December and needing more than 60 minutes to claim three of those four victories, Pittsburgh won nine of 12 (9-3-0) in January to roar back up the standings.
Pittsburgh's recent resurgence has been led mainly by its trio of big offensive guns: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, and the Pens have one of those players strategically scattered on each of their top three lines. Crosby had three goals and 21 points in a dozen January games, Malkin scored a dozen goals and rolled up 19 points last month and Kessel contributed five goals and 17 points to the cause in those 12 contests last month.
"They've done a really good job of retooling," says Caps coach Barry Trotz of the Penguins. "You watch them play, they're a high pressure team in terms of their forecheck. They put you into small spaces, and they capitalize at a very high level when you make a mistake. They challenge exits; they do all that stuff and they're all about pressure, and they've got the speed on that team. So you've got to play with poise, you've got to play quick."
Pittsburgh has won two straight Stanley Cups, ousting the Capitals in the second round en route to each of those consecutive titles. The teams met twice early in the season, both times in Washington, and they split those two contests. The Penguins scored three power-play goals in a 3-2 win over the Caps on Oct. 11, and Washington evened the season's series with a 4-1 win in that Nov. 10 game.
"Well, we know it's going to be a hard fought battle against a team that we have a lot of history with," says Penguins coach Mike Sullivan. "So I think anytime you play in-division rivals and the types of histories that we've built up over the years, those always tend to have heightened emotion associated with them. And I think [Friday] night will be one of those games. They're one of the better teams in the league, and it will be a big test for us. I'm sure our players will be up for that and excited to compete."
