April 11 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena
Time: 3:00 p.m.
TV: ABC
Radio: Team 980, 106.7 THE FAN [JIP]/Caps Radio Network
Washington Capitals (40-30-9)
Pittsburgh Penguins (41-22-16)
It’s a Penguins weekend for the Capitals, who will travel to Pittsburgh to face their longtime Metropolitan Division rivals on Saturday afternoon. Immediately after, both teams will head back east to Washington for a Sunday afternoon rematch at Capital One Arena. The home-and-home set with the Penguins is Washington’s final set of back-to-back games this season; the Caps conclude the campaign in Columbus on Tuesday night.
Saturday’s game marks the 100th meeting of the captains of these two teams, Washington’s Alex Ovechkin and Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby, and both of this weekend’s games between the Caps and the Pens will be telecast nationally.
Earlier this week, in an interview with Caps’ radio play-by-play voice John Walton, Ovechkin mentioned that he would be making a decision on his future in the game sometime during the offseason, after conferring with his family as well as Washington’s ownership and hockey operations personnel.
The NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer with 928 career goals, Ovechkin is finishing a five-year contract extension – just the third contract he signed in a span of 21 seasons – he inked in late July of 2021. He has 31 goals this season, reaching that plateau for an NHL record 20 times now. Ovechkin also has surpassed the 60-point barrier for the 19th time; he fell short only in seasons shortened by a lockout or global pandemic.
Over the life of his current five-year contract, Ovechkin has managed to put up nearly a point per game, totaling 364 points (198 goals, 166 assists) in 373 games. He has played all 79 of Washington’s games this season; the last time he did so over a full campaign was 2017-18, when he helped lead the Capitals to their first Stanley Cup title.
Last season, despite missing 17 games – most of them because of a broken leg – Ovechkin racked up 44 goals and 73 points in 65 games. That rate of 2.3 G/60 stands as the best of his 21-year career as of now.
His totals from this season (31 goals, 30 assists, 61 points in 79 games) are almost identical to his output from 2023-24 (31-34-65 in 79 games).
Given the uncertainty over Ovechkin’s future in the game, expect to see him feted in both Pittsburgh and Washington this weekend, just in case this weekend set of home-and-home game end up becoming two of the final few games of his career.
Washington is hoping it can extend Ovechkin’s career into the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, a cause that was aided by a victory in its previous game. The Caps enter Saturday’s contest on the heels of a 4-0 whitewash of the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Wednesday night. Logan Thompson stopped all 21 shots he faced to notch his 29th victory and third shutout of the season, his second whitewash against Toronto in his last two starts – by the same score – and his ninth career clean sheet.
“We know we need help and we need to win out,” said Caps coach Spencer Carbery of his team’s playoff hopes after Wednesday’s win. “And so, we knew we needed two points. We got a day off [Thursday], and then we've got [Pittsburgh] in the back-to-back, so we're not focused on both [Pittsburgh] games; one game on Saturday, just trying to get two points and stay in this fight.”
Wednesday’s win was also a family affair for the Capitals. Nineteen-year-old center Ilya Protas – Washington’s third-round pick (75th overall) in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft – made his NHL debut, and he was in the starting lineup with big brother Aliaksei and Caps captain Alex Ovechkin. For the rest of the game, the brothers Protas had Tom Wilson riding shotgun for them.
With just under four minutes remaining, the Protas brothers combined to set up 19-year-old defenseman Cole Hutson’s empty-net goal – the final goal of the game – and it was a rare and momentous occasion for the Capitals in several ways.
Wednesday’s game against the Leafs marked the fourth time in franchise history – and the first time in just under a quarter of a century -- a pair of brothers suited up for the Capitals in the same game. When the Protas brothers hooked up Hutson’s goal, they became the second set of brothers to factor on the same goal for Washington, and the first in over 33 years, since Kelly and Kevin Miller assisted on a Mike Ridley goal against Philadelphia on Oct. 10, 1992.
And finally, Hutson’s goal also marked the first time two teenagers factored on the same goal since Dec. 7, 1982 when teenagers Scott Stevens and Bobby Carpenter assisted on Milan Novy’s sixth goal of the season at 5:25 of the third period, tying a game against the Winnipeg Jets at 3-3, which was also the final score.
“I thought he was solid,” says Carbery of the younger Protas’ debut. “You could tell the nerves were there early in the game. I thought he settled in and made a few plays, had a good scoring chance, took one to the net. So, you can see the skill set. I thought it was a good first night for him to get his feet wet in the National Hockey League.”
Saturday afternoon also brings Hutson and Protas their first taste of what the Caps-Pens rivalry is all about.
The first of those previous 99 regular season meetings between the Caps and the Penguins took place on Nov. 22, 2005 at “The Igloo” in Pittsburgh, the Pens’ original home in the Steel City. The Pens prevailed by a 5-4 count that night, with Crosby scoring the third of Pittsburgh’s four first-period goals; the Pens led 4-0 after 20 minutes of play.
The Caps battled back to make it a close contest, with Ovechkin earning a point with a primary helper on Matt Pettinger’s third-period goal. Crosby later added an assist on Ziggy Palffy’s game-winner that gave the victory to the Penguins.
Now, more than two decades down the road from that first regular season meeting in a building that no longer exists, Ovechkin and Crosby are set to battle at least twice more in the continuation of one of the greatest individual sporting rivalries in NHL and North American pro sports history.
“Just thinking about potentially it being the last few regular season games for O, Carbery begins, “And I've taken some time to reflect on that. And as much as – as a head coach – you're just focused on trying to help the team and put them in the best position possible to have success on the ice and win the next hockey game, there have been moments where I've tried to remind myself to enjoy this, of being able to be on the ice with O, being able to coach him, being able to be around him.
“If this ends up being his last year, and so now, with it coming to the Pittsburgh games, just a little bit of reflection on the rivalry between [Pittsburgh] and {Washington], and Sid and O and how it's become a friendship now, and all the things that those two have done for this sport, not only individually, but also because of the match-up and how they've gone toe-to-toe of just [matching] incredible accomplishment [after] incredible accomplishment, just throughout their career, back and forth.
“So, that's pretty special, and it's a big part of the history of the game. A big part of the history of this organization is the O and Sid rivalry, and how that played out before our eyes.”
Carbery is right on all counts. The Ovechkin-Crosby era accounts for just over 40 percent of Washington’s franchise history, and for more than a third of Pittsburgh’s 58-season history in the NHL. It also stretches across nearly a fifth of the League’s rich history of over 100 seasons.
