March 9 vs. Calgary Flames at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Calgary Flames (25-30-7)
Washington Capitals (31-26-7)
The Caps come home to start a busy week of four games in six nights when they host the Calgary Flames on Monday night. Monday’s match with the Flames is Washington’s penultimate home game against Western Conference opponents this season. The Caps host the Colorado Avalanche on March 22 in their last game against a Western foe in the District.
Washington is lugging an untimely three-game losing streak into Monday’s game with Calgary. The short skid is untimely because the Caps have just 18 games remaining this season and they’ve got ground to make up in the NHL’s late-season push for playoff positioning. With only 36 possible points remaining on the table, the Caps’ maximum finishing total would be 105, and it figures to take at least 97 points to reach the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. The Caps don’t have much remaining margin for error.
The Caps are coming off a 3-1 loss to the Bruins in Boston on Saturday afternoon, a game in which they missed an opportunity to close the gap between the two teams. But Boston prevailed, winning its 12th straight game on home ice to extend its lead to six points over Washington. The Caps and Bruins meet again in DC on Saturday in the last of Washington’s four games this week.
The rest of the Saturday results around the League all went against the Caps as well; every team they’re vying against for playoff positioning picked up one or two points. The trend continued Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh when both the Bruins and the Pens picked up points in the latter’s overtime victory.
In dropping three straight games, the Capitals have scored a combined total of just five goals. Washington has scored three or fewer goals in five straight games now, and it’s the second time since the calendar flipped to 2026 the Caps have endured such a stretch. From Jan. 11-23 of this year, they went seven straight games without scoring more than three goals, and they posted a 2-5-0 record in the process, scoring just 17 goals. Half a dozen of those 17 goals came on the power play.
“Offensively, we've got to get better,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “And we're working every day on that with our individual skills and our group as a whole, with some structure stuff, but more individually, skating on touch, holding on to pucks, supporting pucks, being able to win a 1-on-1 situation and escape with that puck.
“And [Boston is] a good defensive team, right? They don't give up much. They don't create much as well on the flip side of that, but we didn't get enough in the offensive zone. We had a few sequences. [Jakob Chychrun] obviously makes the elite play that leads to our goal, but not nearly enough in the offensive zone with possessions and those sustained [offensive] zone shifts.”
The Capitals conducted a Sunday morning practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, and both of the newest Capitals were on the ice for the session. Both spoke to the media for the first time following the conclusion of the Sunday skate.
Defenseman Timothy Liljegren comes to Washington from San Jose, and center David Kampf arrives in town after a deal with the Vancouver Canucks. Both players are former members of the Toronto organization, so both are familiar with Carbery – who was an assistant coach with the Leafs for two seasons – and former Leafs defenseman Rasmus Sandin, who celebrated his 26th birthday on Saturday.
“I think this is a good team to come to,” says Liljegren, a 26-year-old veteran of 307 NHL games. “I’ve heard a lot of good things from Sandin. I’m very excited to be here and to get going.”
Liljegren was averaging 20:08 per game in ice time with the Sharks this season – fourth among the team’s defensemen – and he has a goal and 11 points in 43 games this season. He ranked third among San Jose blueliners in both power-play ice time per game (:52) and shorthanded ice time per game (2:19). Liljegren was a first-round choice (17th overall) of the Maple Leafs in the 2017 NHL Draft. He spent five plus seasons with Toronto before being dealt to San Jose on Oct. 30, 2024.
“I would say [I’m a] two-way defenseman,” says Liljegren, asked to describe himself as an NHL player. “Good skater, likes to have a good first pass and join the rush. I think I’ve transitioned from being an offensive defenseman to being more of a two-way [player], and that’s what I’m going to try to bring here.”
Kampf was undrafted; he signed as a 22-year-old free agent with Chicago on May 2, 2017. The 31-year-old pivot is now in his ninth NHL season; he spent four seasons with Chicago and four in Toronto before joining the Canucks this season after the Leafs released him from his contract last November. Kampf had a couple of goals and six points in 38 games with the Canucks this season, and he has 574 career NHL games under his belt.
“I’m trying to improve every year,” says Kampf. “I’m trying to bring some new things to my game and work on the things I always did. I don’t think I’m too much different a player than I was a couple of years ago.
“I’m just trying to give the team as much help as I can and whatever the coach needs from me, I am trying to do it as best as I can.”
Kampf averaged 1:32 per game in shorthanded ice time with Vancouver this season, ranking fourth among the team’s forward group. He represented Team Czechia at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games last month.
“It was a great experience, the best of the best,” says Kampf. “I was excited to go there and play for my country and I think we did a good job. We didn’t start the tournament too good, but the quarterfinals was a great game, and we were so close.
“So it was good, it was fun and I’m really happy with my performance there.”
Kampf had a goal and an assist in five games in Olympic competition, and he won 53 percent of his face-offs.
Calgary was an active seller ahead of the NHL’s trade deadline last week. This season will be the Flames’ fourth consecutive playoff miss, and Calgary GM Craig Conroy was active last week, sending center Nazem Kadri back to the Colorado Avalanche and dealing defenseman McKenzie Weegar to the Utah Mammoth.
In exchange for Kadri, the Flames picked up a conditional first-round pick in the 2028 NHL Draft and a conditional second-round pick in 2027, plus veteran winger Victor Olofsson and center prospect Maxmilian Curran.
The Weegar deal brought veteran blueliner Olli Maatta, a trio of 2026 second-round picks – originally belonging to Utah, the New York Rangers and Ottawa – and center prospect Jonathan Castagna in return.
Calgary also obtained forward Brennan Othmann from the Rangers in exchange for prospect Jacob Battaglia, and it sent a seventh-round pick in the 2027 NHL Draft to Anaheim in exchange for veteran center Ryan Strome, the older brother of Caps’ middleman Dylan Strome. Ryan Strome arrives in Calgary with a year left on his contract.
In his Flames debut on Saturday night at Saddledome against the Carolina Hurricanes, Ryan Strome scored the first of five Flames goals in a 5-4 victory, and he later added an assist on Morgan Frost’s power-play goal.
