In the first game back from the Olympic break, Rick Tocchet's Philadelphia Flyers (25-20-11) are in DC on Wednesday evening to take on Spencer Carbery's Washington Capitals (29-23-7). The Flyers have a 12-11-4 road record to date this season, while the Caps are 17-10-3 on the road.
Game time at Capital One is 7:00 p.m. EST. The game will be televised on NBCSP.
Exiting the Olympics, the Flyers have 26 games remaining in their regular season game schedule while the Capitals have 23. Figuring in the regulation wins tiebreaker, the Flyers currently need to make up a nine-point gap in the standings to make the playoffs as the third place team in the Metropolitan Division or as the second wildcard team in the Eastern Conference.
Of the two avenues into the playoffs, the Flyers have three teams they'd need to pass (New York Islanders, Columbus Blue Jackets and Capitals) to attain third place in the Metro. To get in as a wildcard, the Flyers would need to beat out five teams currently ahead of them in the standings (Boston Bruins, Columbus, Washington, Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs).
In terms of the NHL trade deadline and the regular season stretch drive to follow, the Flyers have 10 days and five games until the March 6 deadline. Wednesday's match against the Capitals marks the start of a gauntlet of three games in less than four nights. From here, the Flyers visit the New York Rangers on Thursday evening and then host the Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Here are the RAV4 Things to watch as the Flyers play the Capitals.
1. A reset opportunity
Right now, there is no momentum -- positive or negative -- for any team in the NHL. Apart from each team's Olympic representatives, no one has played a game since the first week of February. However, teams have had a spate of practice days over the past week to work on various aspects of their games. The Flyers have mostly focused on restoring the structure that built a 22-12-7 record at the statistical midpoint of the season on January 6. Since that time, the Flyers have gone 3-8-4 largely due to collapses in the structure that kept Tocchet's team competitive through the first 41 games.
2. Returning Olympians
The Flyers and Capitals had three representatives apiece in Milano-Cortina for the 2026 Winter Olympics. For Philadelphia, defensemen Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen respectively played outstanding tournaments for silver medalist Team Canada and bronze medalist Team Finland. Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar appeared in one game for Czechia, and otherwise dressed as the backup to Anaheim Ducks' goalie Lukas Dostal.
On the Capitals side, rugged winger Tom Wilson was a mainstay for Team Canada. Defenseman Martin Fehervary played for Slovakia, reaching the semifinal game before losing to Team USA. Finland defeated the Slovaks in the bronze medal game. Meanwhile, Capitals goaltender Logan Thompson made the Team Canada roster. However, St. Louis Blues netminder Jordan Binnington got most of the playing time. Thompson appeared in one game.
In terms of players who did not play in the Olympics, Flyers winger Travis Konecny leads Philly with 54 points (22 goals, 32 assists) this season after playing for Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off last February. He's followed by Trevor Zegras (20g, 29a). On the Capitals' side, future Hall of Famer Alex Ovechkin has 48 points to date (22g, 26a) to trail Wilson for the team lead by one point. Defenseman Jakob Chychrun has 21 goals and a plus-23 rating. Veteran offensive defenseman John Carlson (10g, 36a) is tied with Chychrun with 46 points apiece, while forward Dylan Strome has 16 goals and 47 points.
3. Between the pipes
Vladar (17-8-6, 2.47 GAA, .905 save percentage) stopped 26 of 28 shots in the Flyers' home win over the Capitals on Feb.3. Thompson was injured at the time of the previous meeting and did not play in Philadelphia. Thompson returned to win the Caps' February 5 home game against the Nashville Predators with 27 saves on 29 shots.
Flyers backup goaltender Samuel Ersson and his Washington counterpart, Charlie Lindgren, also dealt with injuries shortly prior to the Olympic break. Both are now fully healthy. Lindgren was activated from IR on Feb. 23.
4. Special teams
Having gone a few weeks between games, the power play and penalty kill are two areas that are particularly hard to predict in a single-game outlook. Heading into the Olympic break, the Flyers ranked 28th on the power play (16.1 percent success rate) and tied for 6th on the penalty kill (79.1 percent). The Washington power play ranked 26th at 16.4 percent while the penalty kill went into the break ranked 20th (78.9 percent).
