Dec. 11 vs. Carolina Hurricanes at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Carolina Hurricanes (18-9-2)
Washington Capitals (18-9-3)
The Caps’ two-game Metropolitan Division homestand concludes on Thursday night when the Carolina Hurricanes come to town for the first of their two visits to Capital One Arena this season. With a single point separating the top two teams in the Metro, Thursday’s game is a tussle for the top spot in the division as well as the Eastern Conference.
After a wildly successful weeklong road trip in which they returned to Washington with seven of a possible eight points (3-0-1), the Caps gutted their way through a 2-0 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets this past Sunday night in the homestand opener. Looking at their first multiple-day gap in the schedule in nearly a month, Caps coach Spencer Carbery wisely gave his guys Monday and Tuesday off before they reconvened for a Wednesday practice session in preparation for the Canes’ arrival.
Washington’s recent – and ongoing – spell of success coincided with one of its busiest stretches of the season; the victory over Columbus came in the Caps’ sixth game in a span of 10 nights, a stretch in which they pulled 11 of a possible dozen points (5-0-1). The Caps started out the season 6-2-0 before hitting the rumble strips for a couple of weeks in late October and early November, when they went 2-6-1 over a nine-game stretch.
When they returned home from Florida in the middle of last month, the Capitals were 8-8-1 and they occupied the basement of the tightly packed Eastern Conference standings. Washington got right while playing seven of its next eight games at home (6-1-1) before heading back out on a bicoastal trip in which they played four games in six nights while traveling over 5,000 air miles.
When they finished off the Jackets on Sunday roughly 24 hours after returning from the west coast, the Caps found themselves sitting atop the Eastern Conference and Metro Division standings and owning the third best record in the NHL.
Now, after a couple days away from the rigors of the rink, they’re ready to tackle seven games in the next 13 days beginning with Thursday’s game with the Hurricanes. As they do so, the Capitals have earned points in eight straight games (7-0-1) and in 12 of their last 13 games as well (10-1-2). But the key for Washington has been having a singular focus on the next game, and not the ones beyond that.
“I think throughout the entire season, you have to have, just a near sighted focus on the game ahead of you,” says Caps right wing Tom Wilson. “And it's funny, I was talking to [Hendrix Lapierre] in California, and he was talking like, ‘Hey, what time's the bus tomorrow, what time's the game, and back-to-back, and then we're going there.’ And I just said, ‘Let's just focus on one game.’
“Because you can get a little bit crazy when you're looking at the schedule, and you know it's going to be a grind. Something that I've always just done is deal with that game day and give it all you got, and then you wake up in the morning, and you get some treatment, get the body right, and do it again. If you look at the whole schedule, it can be a long year, it can be intimidating, especially those stints of games where you're playing every other day, or you're playing a bunch of back-to-backs.
“So, you know it’s going to be crazy, probably here on right until Olympic break. And we’ve just got to stay focused on what's right in front of us. I think our team's done a pretty good job at doing that and handling our business, which is what's directly in front of us.”
That’s definitely a wise mindset to keep, if you can. One game at a time is easier to bite off and chew than the reality of what awaits the Capitals after the NHL’s annual three-day holiday break this month. Starting with a Dec. 27 game in New Jersey, the Caps will play 22 games in 41 days leading up to the Olympic break, and they will have exactly one gap of more than a day between games during that span.
But as Wilson says, the focus first must be on Carolina. The Caps and Canes meet only three times this season, and Thursday’s game is the middle match of the trio. Washington’s only road victory over that rugged 2-6-1 stretch was a 4-1 triumph over the Hurricanes in Raleigh on Nov. 11.
“Every time we play them, it feels like it's hard, fast hockey, and you’ve got to play the right way,” says Wilson. “You’ve got to control momentum. I thought we did a good job at controlling the momentum swings [last month in Raleigh]. They're a team that can feed off that, they start well and they start fast. So, we'll try and use the home ice to our advantage, hopefully get up and just continue to play our game. It's become a good rivalry; it's always a hard-fought game, and those are the fun ones.”
“Really good hockey team; we know them well,” says Carbery of the Hurricanes. “We’ve seen them this year. I think they’re starting to get a little healthier. It’s a good test for us. We know how good they’ve been, all the things they do at a really high level, how they make it difficult on you. It should be a really good test for us at home.”
Blueliner Jakob Chychrun departed Washington’s Wednesday practice early, but Carbery wasn’t concerned.
“He should be fine, just precautionary,” says the Caps coach.
Defenseman John Carlson has missed the last three games with an upper body injury, and he was a full participant in Wednesday’s practice.
Carolina just concluded a seven-game homestand with a 4-1 win over Columbus on Tuesday night in Raleigh. That victory over the Jackets tipped the homestand in the Hurricanes’ favor; they finished their two-week homestand at 4-3-0, and beginning with Thursday’s game in the District, the Canes will play five of their next six games on the road.
The Caps and Canes enter Thursday’s game with virtually identical marks on the season, but Washington has played one more game than the Hurricanes to this point of the campaign. Both the Caps and the Canes have identical 10-5-1 records on home ice. The Capitals are 8-4-2 on the road while the Canes are 8-4-1.
When the Caps downed the Canes in Carolina last month, they halted a four-game Carolina winning streak, the Hurricanes’ second longest of the season. Carolina opened the season by winning five consecutive contests. Beginning with that Nov. 11 home ice loss to the Capitals, the Canes have gone 7-5-2 in their last 14 games.
