Six Pack To Go – The Caps open up their longest road trip of the 2025-26 season today in Denver against the Colorado Avalanche. It’s the first of six games to be played in a span of 11 days, and today’s game against the Avs is game No. 50 on the season for the Capitals. By afternoon’s end, the Caps will have less than 40 percent of the remainder of the season stretched out in front of them.
The Caps come into Monday’s contest with a suboptimal 7-10-4 record across their last 21 games, and they know they’ve got to start turning the ship around.
“Huge,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of his team’s next half dozen games. “Difficult road trip, a lot of difficult buildings to play in, starting today. And with how things have gone and trying to build some momentum in our season at a critical point, it’s a huge road trip.”
Watching the Caps try to navigate their way out of these lengthening midseason doldrums, you can see that lack of effort is not the issue, it’s mostly been a lack of execution in key moments, and mistakes made at critical points of contests that too frequent result in momentum swinging to the opposition. Carbery doesn’t see urgency as an issue.
“You’ve got to be careful with that,” says Carbery. “We’ve talked about urgency, no doubt. I feel like the guys now understand where we’re at. Sometimes early in the season, when you have some success, and we’ve got a blend of sort of young – really young – players, and then we’ve got some veteran players.
“I think in November and December you’re rolling pretty good. Does that urgency level drop a little bit? Sure. But I feel like at this point, I don’t think that’s an issue with our group. They truly understand the importance and the significance of where we’re at. There is no one that thinks, ‘Oh, everything is fine right now.’
“So, I don’t think it’s an urgency thing. It’s now got to become, ‘How do you execute inside of a hockey game with that urgency level? How do I make the plays that need to be made? How do I win that puck where we’ve got to get that puck out of our defensive zone?
“With all the little things that are happening, I just find that we’re not executing at a high enough level inside of the game, whether that’s making sure that we’re looking after a puck and don’t turn it over in a dangerous spot, or we win a 1-on-1 situation at the net front, offensively and defensively. I think it’s just a little more of that where right now we’re making call it 30 mistakes in a game, and we need to cut that down to 15. If we get just one play here or there per guy, I think we’ll get this thing right.”
For today’s game, Carbery said there will be some lineup changes, but he did not delve into specifics on that front. Given that Washington loaned winger Brett Leason back to AHL Hershey before it departed on this long journey, the odds of either Justin Sourdif or Tom Wilson returning from multi-game absences would seem to be high.
Red Light Special – Last season, the Caps were the second-most prolific offensive team in the NHL, averaging 3.49 goals per game. That figure has dipped by a just over a quarter of a goal per contest, to 3.20 goals per game, landing the Capitals in a respectable 12th place in the League overall.
But too often this season, they’ve fallen on the wrong side of the magic number of three when it comes to scoring goals. Last season, the Caps were limited to two or fewer goals in 26 of 82 contests (31.7 percent), going 3-20-3 in those contests. This season, they’ve been limited to two or fewer goals in 19 of their first 49 games (38.78 percent) and they’ve had slightly better results (3-12-4) in those contests.
Eleven of their last 21 games (52.4 percent) have resulted in the Caps lighting the lamp on two or fewer occasions, which is a primary factor in their inability to string together consecutive victories over that span.
In The Nets – For the Caps, Logan Thompson is the projected – but not confirmed – starter for today. Thompson would be taking a third crack at his 18th victory of the season; he is 2-3-1 with a 2.31 GAA and a .919 save pct. in his last six starts.
Lifetime against the Avalanche, Thompson is 1-2-0 in three appearances – all starts – with a 2.40 GAA and a .914 save pct.
For the Avs, Mac Blackwood is the projected starter this afternoon. He is 13-2-1 on the season with a couple of shutouts, a 2.26 GAA and a .917 save pct. in 17 appearances (15 starts).
Lifetime against the Capitals, Blackwood is 4-9-1 with a 3.40 GAA and an .884 save pct. in 15 appearances, all starts.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Caps and Avalanche might look on Monday afternoon in Denver:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 21-Protas
24-McMichael, 34-Sourdif, 9-Leonard
22-Duhaime, 29-Lapierre, 63-Miroshnichenko
72-Beauvillier, 26-Dowd, 53-Frank
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
6-Chychrun, 3-Roy
38-Sandin, 47-Chisholm
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Healthy Extras
15-Milano
52-McIlrath
57-van Riemsdyk
Injured/Out
34-Sourdif (upper body)
43-Wilson (lower body)
80-Dubois (abdomen)
COLORADO
Forwards
62-Lehkonen, 29-MacKinnon, 88-Necas
20-Colton, 11-Nelson, 13-Nichushkin
17-Kelly, 18-Drury, 95-Olofsson
93-Bardakov, 82-Ivan, 54-Brindley
Defensemen
70-Malinski, 8-Makar
42-Manson, 84-Burns
49-Girard, 28-Solovyov
Goalies
39-Blackwood
41-Wedgewood
Healthy Extras
None
Injured/Out
7-Toews (upper body)
25-O’Connor (hip)
92-Landeskog (upper body)
94-Kiviranta (lower body)
