Feb. 25 vs. Philadelphia Flyers at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Philadelphia Flyers (25-20-11)
Washington Capitals (29-23-7)
For the better part of the last three weeks, most NHL players have been able to unplug from hockey and the rigors of the League’s compressed Olympic schedule. Midway through last week, they were met with a semblance of a return to the normalcy of the regular season. The 32 NHL teams opened their training centers, most players were back on the ice, back in the locker room, back playing hockey, and back answering questions from the media.
With the 2026 Winter Olympic Games now in the rear view, the NHL is set for its return to business with an eight-game slate of activity on Wednesday night.
Two months from now, the Caps will either be underway in the Stanley Cup playoffs or beginning a long summer. Washington has 23 games remaining in which to determine its fate for the 2025-26 season, and the first of those games will be played in the District on Wednesday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.
When they re-entered the NHL’s regular season schedule following last February’s Four Nations Face-Off tournament – a year ago Sunday in Pittsburgh – the Caps owned a nine-point lead over Florida in the Eastern Conference standings, and they were 10 points up on Carolina in the Metropolitan Division.
They’ll have no such luxuries when they return against the Flyers on Wednesday. With 65 points, the Caps are tied with Columbus for ninth place in the East and fourth in the Metro, four points behind Boston in the East and the Islanders in the Metro.
Washington’s total of 23 games remaining is the lowest in the entire League. Columbus, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia hold three games in hand on the Caps, and five different Atlantic Division teams – all within five points of Washington – hold two games in hand. The Isles hold a single game in hand on Washington.
That makes it important for the Caps to hit the ground running on Wednesday, when the Caps kick off a stretch of three games in four nights. Washington entered the Olympic break as the only team in the League with as many as 59 games played. The Caps also played 22 games between the NHL’s holiday break and its Olympic break, also the most in the League. Now, they’re one of nine teams – five of them from the Eastern Conference – that must jump back into the fray with three games in four nights.
“It was a much-needed break,” says Caps defenseman Rasmus Sandin. “But at the same time, it’s been nice in the last couple of days getting back into routines, and coming back to the rink here in the morning and getting some good work in.
“We’re just super excited to get the games going here, and we all know how important every single game will be. We’re super excited.”
They’ll need to be super good, too. Going into the break, the Caps went 5-2-1 in their last eight games for a point percentage of 68.75 pct. If they’re able to replicate that rate over the final 23 games, they would finish the season with 97 points, which may or may not be enough to get them into the Eastern Conference playoff picture. But they do believe in themselves and their ability to put on a late surge in the season’s final quarter.
“The belief in the guys in the room and also the belief in what we’re doing out there in our system is the main thing,” says Sandin. “We all know what this team is capable of doing; we could see it last year and we could see stretches of this season where we’ve played really good hockey.
“I think it’s a matter of coming in confident here and sticking with our structure. It sounds like a cliché, with working hard and stuff like that, but it’s really the truth for us. It’s just doing all that and keeping the belief and trust in each other.”
Roughly half of the current group was part of the 2023-24 Caps team that managed a successful late-season turnaround that landed it a playoff berth in the waning minutes of the final regular season game of that campaign.
“At that point of the year, with where we were at those last couple of months, it was truly a roller coaster scenario,” recalls Charlie Lindgren of that stretch, two years ago at this time. “We’d win a game and we’d get super excited. And we’d lose a game and it felt like the season was on the brink.
“But at the same time, we did stay pretty even keel during that time. And I think it’s going to have to be a lot more of the same. If we lose a game, it’s put it behind us and focus on the next game. There are a lot of guys in this room that were on that team two years ago, and I think the experience helps.
“Just knowing our game and what we have to do, we have a really good idea of the kind of hockey we’ve got to play. We went over that over the break, and we know what we’ve got to do. Now, just go out and do it, and don’t put too much pressure on ourselves. At the end of the day, we know in the back of our heads where we’re at in the season, and we’re going to try to harness it and enjoy it, and go out and make a push.”
The Caps got healthier in the last three weeks. In Washington’s final game before the break on Feb. 5 against Nashville, P-L Dubois returned after missing three months – and 47 games – because of abdominal surgery. Lindgren (lower body) and forward Connor McMichael (upper body) were both injured in a Jan. 29 game at Detroit, but both are ready to return to action Wednesday against the Flyers.
“Number one, I think our group as a whole has a lot of belief and a lot of confidence that we are a really good hockey team,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “This isn’t a group that is tentative or is hesitant about, ‘Can we do that?’ There is extreme belief from our entire group, staff and players.
“Now, going into the break we win four of five, so similar to 5-2-1; we win four of our last five games. Dubois comes back in the Nashville game; I think that gives us a little bit of a jolt where guys are now like, ‘Okay, we’ve got our full lineup that we haven’t seen since game five of the season. It’s been 50-whatever games since we’ve had this lineup, so now we’ve got the best look that we’ve got right now, with one of our best players coming back into our lineup.’
“That’s what I can say. I think there is a lot of belief in our group right now. Now, we have to go out and show it, one game at a time. And we’ll start [Wednesday] night.”
As they head into these final 23 games, the Capitals’ only lingering health concern is over defenseman John Carlson, who left that Feb. 5 game with a lower body injury. Carlson has been skating on his own before recent practices – including Tuesday’s – but his status is uncertain heading into Wednesday’s game.
“He is day-to-day,” says Carbery. “We’ll see how he is [Wednesday] and then we’ll assess for [Wednesday’s game].
Olympian Martin Fehervary practiced with his teammates on Tuesday while both Logan Thompson and Tom Wilson took Tuesday off after returning with silver medals from their own Olympic experience with Team Canada. Carbery said Thompson and Wilson’s status for the Philadelphia game would also be determined Wednesday.
After a strong start that had it in playoff contention through the season’s first half, Philadelphia sputtered into the break with just three wins in its last 15 games (3-8-4), one of which was a 4-2 triumph over the Capitals in Philly on Feb. 3.
With five straight seasons outside the playoffs for Philadelphia, the team will set a franchise record for playoff futility if it misses the postseason in 2025-26. Last season, the Flyers matched the longest previous streak in franchise history, previously achieved from 1989-90 through 1993-94.
The Caps and Flyers meet twice more after Wednesday’s game. The two Metro Division rivals will tangle in Philadelphia on March 11 and again in Washington on March 31.
