Nov. 15 vs. New Jersey Devils at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
New Jersey Devils (12-4-1)
Washington Capitals (8-8-1)
Following an eight-day, four-game road trip, the Caps are back in the District to kick off a stretch of home-heavy hockey. The Caps host the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night to begin a three-game homestand and a run of seven home games in their next eight.
After dropping a pair of close games – both were even after 40 minutes of play – in Pittsburgh and Tampa, respectively, to start the trip, the Caps put it all together in a convincing 4-1 victory over Carolina on Tuesday, setting themselves up for the possibly of a split for the trip in Thursday’s finale against the Panthers in Florida.
But that game against the Cats went the way too many have gone for Washington this season, with the Caps playing well but not well enough to win. They made some mistakes at inopportune moments of the game, and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions made them pay, handing Washington a 6-3 setback.
Now, the Caps are hoping the extended dose of home cooking can cure what ails them. They haven’t been able to string consecutive wins together in more than three weeks now. Since starting the season 6-2-0 in their first eight games, the Caps have gone 2-6-1 in their last nine games.
Washington was in eight of those last nine games; several of them were tied heading into the third period. Despite the frustration of the mounting losses, the Caps are still believers in their process.
“It’s not going to change,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “Obviously, everybody wants the results to come. Of course you do. You want guys to score goals; you want guys to have big years. And at the end of the day, if we’re putting ourselves in good spots and we aren’t finishing – and we aren’t – then yeah, we’re going to continue to work; nothing’s going to change with that.
“We’re going to continue to problem solve, we’re going to try to find more ways to score goals, we’re going to continue to try to find line combinations that have chemistry. We’re going to continue to try different players – Ryan Leonard, whoever it might be – in those spots. The process isn’t going to change just because we’re not scoring goals; that’s just not how it works. We’re going to continue to do things because eventually pucks should go in, and eventually players will get here that can shoot the puck in the net, and that’s all you can trust.”
Late in the first period of Thursday’s game, Carbery moved Justin Sourdif and Connor McMichael – the middlemen of his middle six – putting Sourdif with Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson and placing McMichael between Leonard and Hendrix Lapierre. The newly cobbled Sourdif unit looked good, and Sourdif scored in the first minute of the final frame to pull the Caps to within a goal of their hosts.
In the third period, Carbery then flipped Leonard up to the top unit with Dylan Strome and Anthony Beauvillier, while putting captain Alex Ovechkin with McMichael and Lapierre.
“I thought it was great,” says Carbery. “I loved the third period lines; thought they provided a spark. Sourdif, that’s the best game I’ve seen him play. He was excellent tonight, all around the puck, glad to see him get rewarded. I liked Leonard when we moved him with Strome there in the third period; he had some good opportunities at the net front that sets up our third goal. I liked a lot of what the combinations in the third did.”
Leonard logged 15:08 in the game, eclipsing the 15-minute mark for the third time in 17 games this season.
After logging seven minutes and change in each of the first three games of the trip, Sourdif skated 15:20 on Thursday against the team that drafted him and gave him his start in the NHL. That’s a single-game high for Sourdif’s still budding 21-game NHL career.
“I felt I needed a little more out of my game,” says Sourdif. “I felt like I’ve kind of just been going through the motions the past two weeks. Stuff like the puck bouncing over my stick and things not really going the right way, and I was getting a little frustrated.
“Playing against my old team here, I had a little extra jump. Obviously I was playing with Pro and Willie, and they were great tonight and helping me out; I just tried to use my speed and get out of corners quick. Overall, I thought we had a really good team game. I thought the whole team played really well, and we just had some unfortunate bounces.”
That’s been the story of several recent losses, but a fifth of the way into the season, the Caps rank third in the NHL – behind Carolina and Colorado in controlling shot attempts, and they’ve yielded the fewest goals against at 5-on-5 with just 23 in 17 games.
As Carbery notes, it’s a matter of sticking with the process.
“We played really well in Carolina and proved that we’re a top team,” says Leonard. “And then [Thursday] we come out firing. I don’t know the shots [totals], but a couple of bounces don’t go our way; they get a couple power-play goals. But like I said, we just can’t get bored with it and stick to our process.”
New Jersey opened the season with a road loss in Carolina, and then it reeled off eight consecutive victories. The Devils have hovered along at 4-3-1 since, but their earlier winning run has them atop the Metropolitan Division standings.
Most recently, the Devils opened a five-game road trip with a 4-3 overtime victory over the Blackhawks in Chicago on Wednesday night. Defenseman Simon Nemec filled his hat trick by scoring the game-winner in overtime, on a stretch feed from winning netminder Jacob Markstrom.
The 21-year-old Nemec – the second player chosen overall in the 2022 NHL Draft – became just the eighth defenseman in NHL history and the first since Jakob Chychrun – now with the Caps, then with Arizona – on April 4, 2021. Nemec is the youngest of the bunch to achieve the feat, besting Chychrun, who was four days past his 23rd birthday when he pulled it off four and a half years ago.
On Friday, the Devils announced that center Jack Hughes would be sidelined for Saturday’s game because of a non-hockey related hand injury. New Jersey also placed ex-Caps forward Connor Brown on injured reserve and recalled left wing Shane Lachance – a sixth-round choice of the Edmonton Oilers in the 2021 NHL Draft – from AHL Utica.
Shane Lachance is the son of longtime NHL defenseman Scott Lachance – a native of Charlottesville, VA – and the grandson of legendary NCAA coach Jack Parker.
