Jan. 27 vs. Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena
Time: 10:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Washington Capitals (25-21-7)
Seattle Kraken (23-19-9)
Following their first break of more than a day between games in a month, the Caps continue their season-long six-game road trip on Tuesday in Seattle against the Kraken. The Caps have been on the road for more than a week now, and they’re heading into the final third of the journey with Tuesday’s game against the Kraken.
After Tuesday’s game in Seattle, the Caps will play only three more of their final 28 games of the season outside the Eastern Time Zone, all on a late-March trip that takes them to St. Louis, Utah and Las Vegas, respectively.
Although the Caps have claimed just one win in the first four games of the tour (1-2-1), they can still come home above water for the trip if they can achieve something they’ve been seeking to do for the better part of two months now, win consecutive games. After taking on the Kraken, the Caps will finish the trip on Thursday night in Detroit.
On Saturday night in Edmonton, the Caps came within a whisker of nailing down what would have been a 5-4 victory over the Oilers, a win that would have given them two wins in as many nights. But Zach Hyman’s 6-on-5 goal with just over half a minute remaining forced overtime, and Connor McDavid’s breakaway goal in the first minute of the extra session put the victory into the Oilers’ column.
"We can take a lot of things from that Edmonton game," says Caps forward Connor McMichael, who scored a big goal late in the third period to give the Caps a 5-4 lead. "I think if we play like that against most teams, we'll win. And that's got to be our mentality right now; we've got to keep our foot on the gas. It was unfortunate with the result, but I thought for the most part it was a really good game for us. And we obviously generated some offense too, which is nice. We've just got to keep playing like that, and I think we'll beat a lot of teams.
In the final seconds of the second period of Saturday’s game, the Caps lost the services of defenseman Rasmus Sandin, who departed with a lower body injury. Washington was left to try to protect a 3-2 lead with five defensemen, a task that became more difficult when two of them were penalized in the front half of the third.
Veteran stalwart John Carlson – who picked up a pair of assists in the game – logged a whopping 7:03 in shorthanded ice time in Saturday’s game, skating more than 80 percent of the 8:35 in which the Oilers had the man advantage in that game. Carlson logged 9:10 in the third period of Saturday’s game and finished the night at 25:53, one of four Caps blueliners to skate at least 21 minutes in the contest, doing so while playing their second game in as many nights.
“I give our [defense] so much credit, the group as a whole,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “But then you go into our [defense], and guys are hanging on by a thread back there. We got guys battling through stuff, we're down to five, we've got penalty kill after penalty kill after penalty kill, and they're just fighting through – Marty [Fehervary]. John, Matty Roy, [Trevor van Riemsdyk, Jakob Chychrun]. Those guys were battling out there, and we're playing with five basically for 40 minutes, and in tough, tough, tough minutes.”
As the Caps head into the final two games of the trip, they can be heartened by coming off two strong performances in succession, Friday’s 3-1 win in Calgary and Saturday’s barnburner in Edmonton.
“We get three out of four points,” says Carbery of the weekend set of back-to-backs in Alberta. “I know we'd like to close that game out, and guys are disappointed with that, but if we play at that level into the [Olympic] break and coming out of the break, we'll be in good shape. But we’ve got to maintain that. That's been our challenge all year, to consistently play at that level, night after night after night. And that was a good example of it in the last 48 hours.”
Heading into Monday’s slate of NHL activity, the Capitals (57 points) are tied with Philadelphia for fourth place in the Metropolitan Division, two points behind the New York Islanders. But the Isles hold two and the Flyers hold three games in hand on Washington.
Monday in Seattle, the Caps finally got to the practice rink for the first time on the trip; a scheduled session last week had to be scotched because of travel issues. Following an off day on Sunday, the Caps were missing a quartet of players on Monday morning, including a trio of defensemen: Sandin, Roy and Declan Chisholm – and Tom Wilson.
“We’ll see [Tuesday,]” says Carbery of the quartet of missing men. “They’re all a little bit banged up, but we’ll see where we’re at [Tuesday].”
On the good news front, Monday’s session shows that center P-L Dubois has matriculated from the powder blue non-contact sweater to the standard issue practice sweater. Dubois underwent abdominal surgery to repair an injury suffered in an Oct. 31 game against the Islanders.
That’s definitely a step forward and Dubois’ recovery is right in line and on time with the stated three to four months of recovery time. It doesn’t indicate that a return is imminent right away, though.
“I don’t read too much into it,” says Carbery. “Like, he looks good out there; Dubie always looks good whether he is in a regular jersey or a light blue jersey. He just continues to progress, and so today was a good step. He was partaking in some of the drills that we did, [took] a little bit of contact there. So another good day for him, and he’ll just continue on in his progression.”
Under the guidance of ex-Caps assistant coach Lane Lambert, now in his first season as Seattle’s bench boss, the Kraken is in a three-way tie – with fellow Pacific Division denizens Los Angeles and San Jose -- for the second wild card playoff berth in the Western Conference.
Since starting the New Year with a four-game winning streak, Seattle has stumbled to a 3-5-2 mark across its last 10 games. Most recently, the Kraken overcame the New Jersey Devils here in the Emerald City on Sunday afternoon.
As the Caps play the fifth game of a six-game road trip here on Tuesday, Seattle is playing the fifth game of a six-game homestand. With the Caps on tap for Tuesday and Toronto coming in Thursday for the finale, the Kraken is 2-2-0 on the homestand to date.
