Caps Head Back to Philly
Four nights after taking a 3-1 win here, the Caps return to Philadelphia for a pair of games against the Flyers
Following a quick stop at home to host the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night, the Capitals are right back out on the road for a three-game trip. The journey starts with a pair of games against the Flyers in Philadelphia on Thursday and Saturday. Washington is in the midst of a stretch in which it plays eight of nine games on the road, and its most recent road game was a 3-1 win over the Flyers in Philly on Sunday night.
On Sunday against the Flyers, the Caps started slowly. They spotted Philly a 1-0 lead before turning in a more assertive final 40 minutes to overtake the Flyers behind a 36-save performance from Ilya Samsonov in goal.
Two nights later in D.C., the Caps reversed the trend against the Devils, dominating them over the first 40 minutes to carry a 4-1 advantage into the final frame. But Washington got stuck in the mud in the third, yielding three goals in less than seven minutes as New Jersey tied the game and forced overtime. It took Jakub Vrana's overtime goal - his second tally of the game - to win it for Washington.
Over the game's first 40 minutes, the Caps held a lopsided 40-20 advantage over the Devils in shot attempts at 5-on-5. In the final period, New Jersey flipped that around on Washington, out-attempting the Capitals 16-7 at 5-on-5.
"We've gotten a little bit into this trend where we're playing really good hockey," says Caps right wing T. J. Oshie. "And this even goes from playing a really, really good game the game before and then coming back the next game and just playing like it's going to be easier, and that's something that we certainly have to get out of our game.
"We're definitely a new team, but a lot of the same guys and we've had problems with this in the past. There has to be a maturity there that starts with the veteran players on the team and then filters through - all the way down to the young guys - that when we get up in games or we're playing really well, that that's our standard and we can't get away from that. We can't think things are going to be easy. The New Jersey Devils aren't going to come into D.C. and take a night off; that's just not the way it's going to happen, and throughout the rest of our division.
"We've really got to learn from that. We hope to be up in a lot more games moving forward and playing at an elite level, and we've got to find a way to stay there, and it starts with the older guys for sure."
The Caps managed to come away with two points, so no harm was done in this instance. But they've left points on the table against good teams in their division - namely Pittsburgh and Boston - that could come back to haunt them given the tightness of the standings and the fact that every game this season is a four-point game.
Washington has been playing strong hockey over a sustained stretch of time now; it holds a 9-2-1 record in its last dozen games. But even a hot spell of that length - spanning more than a fifth of the season - hasn't provided them any standings separation in the East Division. The Caps' consistency level has been higher of late, and no team is going to dominate all 60 minutes on a night in, night out basis. But the Caps
"The whole second Boston game for me can go in the trash can," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette, referring to a 5-1 loss to the Bruins on March 5. "There's no good. But I think we have played some pretty good hockey over a long period; we're 9-2-1 or something like that. It's never going to be perfect all the time.
"I do have a problem with the third period [against New Jersey]. We just stopped playing. We had a lead, and then we went out thinking we were just going to - ah, whatever. We need to be better than that, we can't mishandle pucks, we can't take penalties, we can't do things that aren't going to make us a successful hockey team, and expect to be successful. And so we'll try to learn from it and move on."
The Capitals and the Flyers have split their previous two meetings this season, with Philly winning in Washington by a 7-4 count on Feb. 7 and the Caps returning the favor in the City of Brotherly Love on Sunday night.
While the Caps were facing the Devils in D.C. on Tuesday, the Flyers were hosting the Buffalo Sabres. Philadelphia rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the second to take a 5-4 shootout win over the Sabres, who lost for the eighth straight time (0-7-1). The Flyers pulled even on a Shayne Gostisbehere power-play goal with 5:46 left in the third and prevailed in the skills competition, avoiding what would have been a third setback in four nights.
In the ultra-competitive East Division, the Flyers are currently sitting in fifth place. Philadelphia does hold at least two games in hand on three of the four teams ahead of it in the divisional standings, and as a team that was waylaid by COVID postponements, Philly has a rugged schedule just ahead.
When the Caps were here in Philadelphia this past Sunday night, that game ended a stretch of six games in nine nights for the Flyers, who went 3-3-0 over that stretch. Beginning next Monday, the Flyers will again start a stretch of six games in nine nights, one that will finish with grueling run of five games in seven nights.
