Dec. 7 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Columbus Blue Jackets (13-9-6)
Washington Capitals (17-9-3)
A little more than 24 hours after returning from a grueling but highly successful four-game road trip, the Caps spring back into action when they host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday night at Capital One Arena. Sunday’s game will be Washington’s fifth in a span of eight nights and its sixth in the last 10 nights. It’s also the third meeting between the two Metropolitan Division rivals this season; the Caps have taken a pair of 5-1 decisions in the prior two meetings, one in each city.
As the two teams take the ice, the Caps sit alone atop both the Eastern Conference and Metropolitan Division standings while Columbus sits alone in the Metro basement. But two months deep into the regular season, a mere five points separates Washington and the Jackets.
The Caps concluded their weeklong journey on Friday night in Anaheim, falling 4-3 to the Ducks in a shootout. With a 3-0-1 record on a cross-country road trip, the Caps narrowly missed winning four road games in six nights for just the second time in the franchise’s 51-year history, and the first time in 42 years.
Washington played 245 minutes of hockey on its journey, and it never once trailed on the scoreboard. The Caps were the only team in the NHL that did not play from behind on the scoreboard at any point in the last week.
“I thought we played well on the trip; I'll be honest,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “And honestly, there's some – like the New York Islander game [last Sunday] comes to mind, [Friday in Anaheim] comes to mind – where we didn't play great. But once you figure out when we don't have our ‘A’ game, here's how we can still get points or still be competitive.
“And I think that’s maybe one of the things that's changed a little bit through that stretch where we lost a lot of confidence, and it was a little bit shaky when something bad would go against us, or we'd give up a goal after we scored, it would be ‘uh oh.’ And now, where you don't feel that at all, even as momentum shifted [Friday] in the game, you felt like our guys were completely fine with the situation and not overwhelmed by the environment.”
Over a longer stretch of time – dating back to Nov. 15 – the Caps have earned points in 11 of their last 12 games (9-1-2), a run which followed a fallow stretch of 2-6-1 hockey before it. But Washington’s 6-2-0 start to the season combined with its current spree shows that fallow stretch to be the anomaly in the Caps’ season to date.
“It feels like it, right?” says Caps center Dylan Strome. “At the beginning of the year, I think we started out 6-2-0, so, I feel like that was the anomaly of the season so far. But we’ve got to string good games together – like we have been – and I feel like we're a tough team to beat. We’ve got four good lines and guys that can kind of play against anyone, and we've had lots of guys step up throughout injuries. So it's been nice to see.”
Ah yes, the injuries.
Despite the success on the trip and across the last three weeks of the season, the Caps – like many other NHL teams in this season of the condensed Olympic schedule – are trying to navigate their daily grind while dealing with an ongoing spate of injuries.
When the Caps departed DC for their trip last weekend, they brought along center Nic Dowd, who had missed the previous six games with an upper body ailment. Dowd missed the first two games of the trip before returning in the San Jose game on Wednesday, but Justin Sourdif missed that game with a lower body injury, and defenseman John Carlson missed the final two games of the trip with an upper body injury as well. Sourdif did return for Friday’s game in Anaheim, skating over 17 minutes in a strong performance.
Goaltender Charlie Lindgren won his fourth straight start on Wednesday in San Jose, but he missed Friday’s game with an upper body injury. Lindgren’s unavailability led to Washington practice goaltender Parker Milner was able to have the unique Friday afternoon experience of signing a professional tryout agreement, suiting up with the No. 1 Washington sweater, and then taking warmups and sitting on the bench while backing up Logan Thompson Friday night in Anaheim.
And lastly, after a statement game in which he scored twice and rolled up four points in the win over the Sharks in San Jose, Caps rookie winger Ryan Leonard left Friday’s game in the first period after taking a high, hard hit from Anaheim defenseman Jacob Trouba. Leonard got up under his own power, but he was bleeding and did not return to the game. After Friday’s contest, Carbery stated that Leonard was “going to be out.”
Washington may need to summon reinforcement(s) from AHL Hershey ahead of Sunday’s game with Columbus; it’s unclear how many healthy bodies the Caps have going into the game with the Jackets.
The Caps flew home from Anaheim on Saturday morning, arriving in DC late in the afternoon while Columbus was finishing up a Saturday mid-afternoon tilt with the Panthers in South Florida, the opener of a three-game road trip for the Jackets.
With Elvis Merzlikins in goal and Columbus going up against ex-Jacket Sergei Bobrovsky, the two teams traded tallies throughout the afternoon. When the dust settled sometime after sunset, Florida prevailed 7-6 in overtime on Sam Bennett’s game-winner with four seconds remaining in the extra session.
As mentioned earlier, the Caps are 9-1-2 since Nov. 15; Columbus has won only four games over that same span. Despite a propensity to lose hold of leads this season – they led by three halfway through the second period Saturday in Florida – the Jackets have also managed to pull points in nine of eleven games since the middle of last month (4-2-5).
As well as Washington has played of late, the Jackets have only one more regulation loss than the Caps in the last three weeks, one of which was absorbed at Capital One Arena on Nov. 24.
