Situation Station – Tonight against the Detroit Red Wings, the Caps carry a modest two-game winning streak into the first game of a two-game weekend homestand; Seattle visits on Sunday. The Caps needed a shootout on Monday and overtime on Wednesday in New York to overcome the Senators and Rangers, respectively, in the building of those two victories, which came in the aftermath of the team’s first three-game slide of the season.
The 3-2 victory in New York came in a nationally televised dogfight of a contest in which Washington grabbed an early lead but found itself fighting to dig out of a 2-1 deficit for much of the back half of the game. The Caps successfully did so, and they’ll seek to build on that this weekend and into their three-game California trip next week.
Down to just 20 games remaining on the season, the two-game homestand and the trip to the Golden State will comprise a qurter of that remaining schedule.
“I think it’s getting better; it is,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “I think we’re going in the right direction. I liked a lot of the things we did in the New York game. I like where we’re going. I feel like we’re getting closer to what we need to look like, and that’s important, to just continue to build and continue to build some momentum, consistency, little habits. The things that stick out to me that I know are going to be really, really important down the stretch, those are the things that I’m looking for every night. We’re getting better with it.
“New York was a great example, and I loved playing in that game with our group, because I’ll reference that with our group. It’s exactly the way it’s going to feel – because I said this after the game – [in the playoffs] there last year, in Game 1 or Game 2 of the playoffs. The crowd, referees, things go against you, the tension builds. You’ve got things happening where guys are frustrated, I’m frustrated. And it just brought back to the forefront, you’ve got to really be able to manage emotions, situations, the refereeing, hits, fights, tension in the building, fans, all of it – momentum swings.
“All of a sudden, you’re up 1-0. You feel like you’ve got all this momentum, you feel so good about yourselves. And you snap your fingers, and you’re down 2-1. And now you’ve got to fight your way out of that. So it was a really, really good reminder for me of what it’s going to look like, and I thought we did a good job of – for the most part – managing those situations.”
Win, Lose or Draw – The Caps’ 3-2 win over the Rangers on Wednesday featured a pair of goals – one at 5-on-5 and one on the power play – that came in the immediate aftermath of offensive zone face-offs that Washington lost, but on which it quickly managed to repossess the puck and then score.
P-L Dubois scored the game’s first goal at 1:04 of the first, just four seconds after a left dot draw in New York ice, a face-off that occurred because the Rangers had iced the puck. Midway through the third, Alex Ovechkin scored on a power play – the 885th goal of his NHL career – just seven seconds after the Caps lost a right dot draw in New York ice.
“The details of the game are so important,” says Dubois. “Sometimes it’s getting a stick on a puck, sometimes it’s lifting a guy’s stick; the F2 gets to the puck and [Tom Wilson] gets a good jump, and then he just puts it in an area for me, and all you’ve got to do is put it in.
“And on [Ovechkin’s] goal, [Ethen Frank and Andrew Mangiapane] forecheck, get pucks, get sticks, and then that just creates chaos. [Connor McMichael] comes in at the right place, and at the right time, puts it in an area for Mange, and then it finds [Ovechkin].
“There's a lot of ways of scoring goals. You can skate it in the blue line, make a pass, one-timer, and score. But a lot of times – especially at this time of year and going into the playoffs – you have to be able to score every kind of goal. And for people watching out there, Frankie doesn't get an assist on the [Ovechkin] goal, but if Frankie doesn't do his job, we don't get a goal.
“And even if Tom doesn’t make that play [on the first goal], it could give us early momentum, but if Tom doesn't get that jump, we don't score. Sometimes guys make plays out there that don't necessarily show on the stat sheet, but it means the difference between a win or a loss for us, and I think that's what's been one of our good things this year.”
Dubois speaks eloquently to the elements that go into those critical face-offs from the offensive side of the game, but he and Nic Dowd are no strangers to the defensive side and mindset of those draws.
“This time of year and into the playoffs, everything is so important,” says Dowd. “Every single puck battle matters, because you just don't know where it's going to lead. It’s like if a linesman makes a bad call on an icing. Everyone is going to say, ‘Well, it’s no big deal, it’s just an icing.’ But the guys stay on the ice, then the icing occurs. Maybe you win the draw, and you don't get it out. Then you take a penalty, they’re on the power play again, you’re on the penalty kill, then you give up a goal. And you can look at that all the way back to the icing.
“It's the same thing, in my mind, on that play. If Willie isn’t dialed in and ready to go – whatever analogy you want to use -- he doesn't get to that puck. Nothing ever occurs. And then you have a face-off win by New York. No big deal; the puck gets out. It's just things happen in games like that, where you can always point to things that happened, five, 10, 20 or 30 seconds before, like if this guy didn't get to this puck or if we didn't get this puck out. Very rarely is it something where it's like, the defenseman was the last guy back, he tried to toe drag, he fell over, gave up a breakaway, and then the puck went in the net. No one's doing that in the playoffs or this late in the season. It's always about that little, tiny extra effort that if you don't make this tiny little play that most people don't even see, then that opportunity never comes, and then we never score that goal, maybe five seconds later, or 10 seconds later, or 20 seconds later.
“So, yeah, the face-offs are a huge, huge thing, because that's why you see so many power plays where even when the penalty kill wins a draw, the [team on the power play] ends up getting possession because they're all told to jump so hard off of those losses that they make it so challenging to get out of the zone. And even turning a face-off loss into a win, that’s going to save you 40 seconds, and you don't know what's going to come of that, right? It was the same on Ovi’s goal.”
Sometimes you win draws, sometimes you lose them. And sometimes – as was twice the case for the Caps on Wednesday in the Big Apple – you lose them, and then you quickly “win.”
So Low Down – In limiting the Rangers to just two goals in Wednesday’s win, the Caps broke an ignominious streak of 11 straight games in which they yielded three or more goals against, tied for the 10th longest streak of its kind in franchise history. The most recent previous occurrence was Dec. 15, 1990-Jan. 6, 1991.
To their credit, this year’s model managed a 5-3-3 mark across those 11 games, by far the best record of any of the previous occurrences over the last half century. Naturally, the all-time franchise record streak – contained within a single season – was established midway through the Caps’ ill-fated inaugural season of 1974-75.
For a stretch of 26 games from Dec. 17, 1974 to Feb. 15, 1975, the Caps were dented for three goals – at the very least – in each game. They were outscored 129-50 for a minus-79 goal differential, outshot 1,014-579, and they went 2-23-1.
And the two victories during that horrid stretch of Caps’ hockey? They came against a pair of Original Six teams, the Rangers and the Red Wings. First, the Caps downed the Wings 6-3 on Jan. 26, 1975 to end a dreadful 17-game winless streak (0-16-1). Five different Caps had two points each in Washington’s fourth-ever victory, dropping Detroit to 12-26-8 on the season.
On Feb. 11, 1975, the Caps overwhelmed the Rangers 7-4 at Capital Centre in the coaching debut of Red Sullivan, the second of the three coaches who worked the bench for Washington that season. After falling down 4-1, the Caps improbably scored six unanswered goals to make a winner of Sullivan.
Weeks later, Sullivan stepped down with a 2-16-0 record for his tenure as the Caps’ bench boss.
In The Nets – Logan Thompson gets the net tonight for Washington against the Wings, seeking his 27th victory of the season. With a shootout win over the Senators on Monday night, Thompson surpassed his previous career best of 25 wins, established with Vegas last season.
Lifetime against the Red Wings, Thompson is 0-1-0 in a single appearance – a start – with a 4.10 GAA and an .857 save pct.
Cam Talbot is tonight’s likely starter for Detroit. The 37-year-old veteran is now toiling for his eighth team in his 12th NHL season. He missed a chunk of action in December because of injury, but he has helped the Wings claw their way closer to a playoff berth since returning.
Since the calendar flipped to 2025, Talbot is 11-4-1 with a shutout, a 2.87 GAA and a .899 save pct. in 16 appearances (14 starts). He and Thompson are tied for sixth in the circuit in victories since Jan. 1.
Lifetime against the Capitals, Talbot is 5-9-1 with a 2.72 GAA and a .907 save pct. in 17 appearances (15 starts).
All Lined Up – Here’s how we believe the Capitals and the Red Wings might look on Friday night in DC:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
21-Protas, 17-Strome, 8-Ovechkin
24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
88-Mangiapane, 20-Eller, 16-Raddysh
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 53-Frank
Defensemen
38-Sandin, 74-Carlson
42-Fehervary, 3-Roy
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Extras
27-Alexeyev
52-McIlrath
Out/Injured
15-Milano (upper body)
19-Backstrom (hip)
77-Oshie (back)
DETROIT
Forwards
92-Kasper, 71-Larkin, 23-Raymond
93-Debrincat, 37-Compher, 88-Kane
85-Soderblom, 27-Rasmussen, 11-Tarasenko
48-Berggren, 14-Motte, 43-Mazur
Defensemen
8-Chiarot, 53-Seider
77-Edvinsson, 20-Johansson
56-Gustafsson, 3-Holl
Goaltenders
39-Talbot
34-Lyon
Extras
36-Fischer
84-Lagesson
Out/Injured
18-Copp (upper body)
46-Petry (undisclosed)
