Sunday Best – The Colorado Avalanche is in town on this fine Sunday afternoon in the District, providing the opposition for the finale of the Capitals’ four-game homestand, their last multi-game homestand of the season.
The Caps are 8-1-1 in their last 10 home games, and today they head into their final dozen games of the season with a matinee against the Avs. Tomorrow, the Caps will be on their way to St. Louis where they start a three-game road trip out west, where they will finish up all their games against Western Conference foes before the end of the month.
First things first, though, and that’s the Avalanche, the NHL’s top team from wire to wire, thus far.
“So, we saw them recently – somewhat recently – in their building,” begins Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “There’s not much that I can say that hasn’t already been written or talked about; they have an elite team. They’re at the top of the standings for a reason. We felt that in their building. I didn’t think we played poorly; the game was a one-goal game for a while there, we’re right in it, and it gets a little bit away from us at the end of the game, so the score looks a little bit more lopsided than I feel like it was.
“But they give you everything you can handle. When it comes to some of the best players on the planet, they have them. And also, just the way that they’re committed to their game plan, you’ve got to be really good on special teams, you’ve got to be good at defending the rush, you’ve got to be really good at sorting situations out in the defensive zone, because they are going to get some possession down there. And then you have to be able to counterpunch; we can’t just be sitting there taking punches the whole night. We’re going to have to find a way to get on their half, we’re going to have to find a way to string momentum and some shifts together. It will be a significant challenge, but a big game for our group against the top team in the League.”
How Low Can You Go? – This late in an NHL season, the checking is tighter, time and space are more at a premium, and the concentration level and commitment to not making mistakes are elevated around the League, particularly among those teams still jockeying for playoff position or trying to clamber their way into a postseason berth.
In their 51 seasons in the NHL, the Capitals have won a total of 134 games by a score of 2-1, or about two and a half such wins per season, on average. Washington has three wins by a 2-1 margin this season, including two of them this month. Another recent game – Wednesday’s 4-1 win over Ottawa – was essentially a 2-1 victory, aside from two late empty-net strikes from the Caps.
In the way back era, it took the Caps more than two years to earn the first 2-1 victory in franchise history; that came on Oct. 29, 1976 in Denver against the Colorado Rockies. And from March of 1991 to November of 1993, the Caps went more than two and a half years without winning a 2-1 game. They did so once again from Feb. of 2012 to Nov. of 2014, the longest gap between 2-1 wins in franchise history.
In their Stanley Cup-winning season of 2017-18, the Caps won 49 regular season games, and none of them were 2-1 victories.
Two years ago, when the Caps put on a successful late season push to force their way into the Stanley Cup playoffs in the waning minutes of their final regular season game, they authored four wins by a 2-1 count – all of them on the road, and all of them with Charlie Lindgren in the nets – over the final 34 days of the season. Four of the Caps’ last 10 wins (10-6-2) that season were 2-1 wins; Washington was outscored by an aggregate count of 52-47 in those final 18 games of 2023-24, and its average of 2.61 goals per game was 25th in the NHL across that 18-game finishing span.
The 2025-26 Caps are more reminiscent of the ’23-24 edition. And part of the problem two years ago was the inordinate amount of time the Caps spent defending. Recently this season, they’ve tightened things up in their end, which they believe will also eventually lead to more offense.
“For the most part, if you're playing well and you're fresh and your legs are there, and you're executing, and you're playing efficiently, that makes a big difference for the offensive part of the game,” says Caps right wing Tom Wilson. “Games where we're not executing, and you're forced to defend all the time, you're taking penalties, you're penalty killing, and a lot of energy and stuff goes into that.
“So, when you're defending hard and you're killing hard and all that, your top players end up [being neutralized]. You're focused on defending, and then you get down in the [offensive] zone you're like, ‘Holy shit, this is hard,’ because you just might be a little bit more gassed.
“So, if one line comes out and sets the next line up, and you get an [offensive] zone draw, and then you hang on to possession, you execute, you get the puck back in, and now there's another [offensive] zone draw. Those are the moments I think when teams start playing good offensively, and if you're in the [defensive] zone, you're like, ‘Holy, this team's not giving us a break.’
“And it gets easier. Like, if you have 10 fresh NHL players on the ice, generally it's going to be pretty tight both ways. If you can get mismatched where a line is tired, or you're getting an advantage like that, or you're executing at a higher rate so you're not wasting energy, skating all over the place and chasing the puck, I think that's something that as we defend better, if we continue to execute better, it's just going to make our game more efficient.
“We'll have more energy, we'll have more creativity, our brains will be in a better spot for scoring goals. So I think that's kind of a focus, is just making the right play in the right situation to keep our game efficient and keep that momentum building in our game, because when you lose that, you kind of get behind the eight ball a little bit, and that's when you start to feel like it's overwhelming where he's coming at you.”
In the stretch run of this season, the Caps are again finding it difficult to light the lamp, and Carbery has noted on more than one occasion that his team needs to be willing and able and patient enough to win those type of low-scoring games in which high quality scoring opportunities are difficult to come by.
“It’s a challenge tonight because even when you’re playing well against a team like Colorado,” says Carbery, “the counter punch can come so quickly that you can be in very good position, you can have a lot of momentum, you can be doing a ton of really good things, and then one instance can flip that, and it can end up in the back your net, or it can end up in an odd man situation.
“And so that's where they provide so many challenges overall, but us just being patient and staying with it [is the key]. And I think I mentioned this yesterday, it’s just a commitment to when you're willing to check and defend, and now this is going to pose a whole another level of challenge with [Nathan MacKinnon] and [Cale Makar] and the rest of the crew that they have.
“But your urgency level and your attention to detail in every situation – that's offensively through the neutral zone and defensively – if you're paying attention to another level, which I feel like our guys have done a pretty good job of lately, that that's where I feel like you can just take the scoring chances from 20 down to 13. And now, if you get great goaltending like we have, you can win some games 1-0 and 2-1. And so hopefully we're playing that way, and it looks like that, and then hopefully we're able to score four or five. That's what the goal is.”
In Friday’s 2-1 win over the Devils, the Caps had a few excellent opportunities to add to their slim one-goal lead in the third period of that game, but those odd-man break chances all went by the wayside, some of them without as much as a shot attempt.
“Now that our habits are better in the defensive zone,” says Wilson, “if we are efficient and we execute, we will go down ice with a little more energy for the [offensive] zone, and I think you’ll see that finish and that execution on plays, tape-to-tape passes and stuff, and more energy to cut back and create space, it will be better.”
In The Nets – Logan Thompson gets the net for Washington again on Sunday against the Avs. Since coming off injured reserve on Feb. 5, Thompson has made 10 starts, going 6-3-1 with a 2.01 GAA and a .928 save pct., ranking sixth in the League in each of the two qualitative measures – among goalies with five or more starts – across that span.
With two back-to-backs remaining on the schedule ahead, both in the month of April, the Caps can roll with Thompson for most of the dozen games left to play in the regular season.
“He is playing at a real high level, and we’re in the scenario that we’re in,” says Carbery. “We need every last point we possibly can get, and he is playing at a high level. We’ll continue to assess on a game-by-game [basis], but to the point of back-to-backs and being able to play Logan consistently right now, in the moment, it enables us to do that.”
Thompson’s start today ties him for the most starts in the League since he came off IR. Lifetime in day games, Thompson is 13-7-3 in 23 appearances – all starts – with two shutouts, a 2.48 GAA and a .915 save pct. In his career against Colorado, Thompson is 1-2-0 in three appearances – all starts – with a 2.40 GAA and a .914 save pct.
MacKenzie Blackwood is the Colorado starter this afternoon. He is 19-8-1 on the season, and he will be seeking the fourth 20-win season of his NHL career today.
Lifetime against the Capitals, Blackwood is 4-9-1 in 15 appearances – all starts – with a 3.40 GAA and an .884 save pct.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Caps and the Avalanche might look on Sunday afternoon in the District:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 72-Beauvillier
21-Protas, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
24-McMichael, 34-Sourdif, 9-Leonard
22-Duhaime, 29-Lapierre, 53-Frank
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 38-Sandin
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
44-Hutson, 3-Roy
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Healthy Extras
27-Liljegren
47-Chisholm
52-McIlrath
63-Miroshnichenko
Injured/Out
64-Kampf (personal)
COLORADO
Forwards
13-Nichushkin, 29-MacKinnon, 88-Necas
92-Landeskog, 11-Nelson, 91-Kadri
17-Kelly, 18-Drury, 10-Roy
93-Bardakov, 82-Ivan, 94-Kiviranta
Defensemen
27-Kulak, 8-Makar
7-Toews, 70-Malinski
42-Manson, 84-Burns
Goalies
39-Blackwood
41-Wedgewood
Healthy Extras
37-Blankenburg
54-Brindley
Injured/Out
20-Colton (upper body)
25-O’Connor (hip)
62-Lehkonen (upper body)
