The Caps embark upon the 2020 portion of the 2019-20 regular season and the second half of that campaign on Friday night in Raleigh, when they take on the Hurricanes at PNC Arena for the second time in less than a week. The Caps were here last Saturday night, when they absorbed a 6-4 loss from the Canes.
That loss last Saturday coupled with a 4-3 loss to the New York Islanders on New Year's Eve afternoon has the Caps in unfamiliar territory heading into Friday's game; they have lost consecutive regulation games for the first time this season. Washington dropped just two games in regulation in the entire month of October (9-2-3) and two in November (10-2-2) before turning in an 8-5-0 mark in December. The Caps started the last month of the decade by going 7-2-0 in their first nine, but they dropped three of four at month's end.
The Caps have yet to defeat Carolina this season; they let a 2-0 third-period lead slip away in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Canes on Oct. 5 in Washington's home opener, and lost last weekend in a game in which they never led.
"We did we did some things in practice [Thursday] that I think will help us," says Caps defenseman Radko Gudas. "You know they're obviously a team that dumps the puck a lot. They want to get on the forecheck right away, and they're playing the body right away, and that's something that we need to address and make some smarter plays on our breakouts - maybe be faster, get the puck and maybe get the pucks out of our zone early to not let them forecheck as they want. That'll be the main thing for us I think, for the [defense] corps."
In last Saturday's loss to the Canes in Carolina, the Caps were without defenseman Michal Kempny and they lost blueliner Christian Djoos after the first period, forcing them to play with five defensemen the rest of the way, and doing so while playing for the second time in as many nights. Most notably though, the Caps were also without right wing Tom Wilson (lower body) for that game, the first game in which Wilson was not in the Washington lineup in more than a year.
Both Kempny and Wilson returned for Tuesday's loss against the Islanders and both are expected to play in Friday's game.
"It's a tough building to play in; it always has been for a number of different reasons," says Wilson. "So emotionally we've got to be into it, which I think we will be. There's definitely a bit of a rivalry starting with them. We know they're going to be coming hard, and they play a simple, hard game. They're going to work hard, they're going to put pucks to the net, and they've got some skill to go with it.
"So we've got to execute our game plan. We're confident that if we do that, we'll be all right, but we have got to be clean out of our own end. When teams throw pucks to the net, and they're buzzing around, you need to battle for the guy next to you, win your battle, move the puck forward, and get it to the offensive zone."
Washington is a very ordinary 5-5-1 against Metropolitan Division opponents this season, and Friday's game finishes a stretch of four straight games against Metro foes. The Caps started out 4-0-1 in their first five divisional games this season, but they've dropped five of seven (2-5-0) since.
