Caps Back in Action in Boston
Following bye week, Caps spring back into action with weekend set of back-to-backs, starting Saturday afternoon in Boston
On Saturday afternoon in Boston, the Caps come out of their All-Star break/bye week hibernation to take on the Bruins at TD Garden. Washington makes its lone trip to Beantown this season to face the juggernaut Bruins, the NHL's best team by far to this point of the season. The Caps haven't seen the Bruins since dropping a 5-2 decision to them in the District on Oct. 12, opening night of the 2022-23 season.
Saturday's contest also starts a set of weekend back-to-back games for the Caps, who have been idle since forging a 4-3 overtime victory over the Blue Jackets in Columbus on Jan. 31. Following Saturday's tilt with the Bruins, Washington returns home to host the San Jose Sharks in the Caps' traditional Super Bowl Sunday matinee game.
Freshly returned from the beaches of the hemisphere, the Caps reconvened on Thursday for a full practice and they conducted another practice on Friday morning ahead of their flight to Boston.
Ten days away from the rigors of the rink wasn't quite enough to shrink Washington's list of wounded any further; the Caps are still without forwards Nic Dowd (lower body) and Tom Wilson (lower body), though both players did skate on their own on Thursday. Neither is expected to play this weekend. And defenseman John Carlson remains sidelined for the longer term with an upper body injury.
For more than a month now, Washington has been unable to string together consecutive wins, a period of time that corresponds with Carlson's absence from the lineup. Since he suffered his injury on Dec. 23, the Caps have slogged along with an 8-7-2 mark in 17 games. Now they'll come out of an extended break to play two games - both in the afternoon - in less than 24 hours, and with travel included.
"It's off a little bit; it's a little bit different," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "We've got a couple of practices, which is good. Sometimes you come back and only get the one practice, and then you're jumping right back into it. So the fact that we were able to practice after 2 o'clock [Thursday] and get some work in, and then practice [Friday] and then take off [for Boston], we probably wouldn't pregame skate anyway [on Saturday]. But it does present that time challenge of making things happen earlier.
"You're finishing some scrambled eggs, and then you're rustling with somebody in the corner; it just happens a lot quicker than it did with a 7 o'clock start. But I think our guys have been in these situations enough with afternoon games to know what they need to do to prepare and to be ready."
And a big part of that preparation is the two practices to which Laviolette referred.
"It's definitely good to get two practices in," says Caps winger Conor Sheary. "If we had to come back with just one and had to play [Friday night] I think it would be a different story. But I think the two practices were definitely good. The first day, you kind of get the rust off and the second day you kind of get reads back and feel the puck a little bit more and stuff like that."
Facing the best team in the League - a team with just one regulation loss (22-1-3) in its first 26 home games this season - coming off of a lengthy break should get the Caps' collective attention.
"I think it honestly helps us that we're playing a team like Boston, who we know we have to be ready for," says Sheary. "To have one regulation loss at this point in the season is pretty incredible. So we know that if we are not on our game, it's going to be a long night. But like I said, I think that helps us, to just be prepared for that and know that everyone has got to buy in for us to win that game, and we know we can. We'll see what happens, but hopefully we can come out with a win."
"It's starting off the right way and it's shaking off the cobwebs as quick as possible," says Caps right wing Garnet Hathaway. "It's tough to turn that 'game' switch back on, and you can't do it on Saturday. [Thursday] was a good practice with some compete in there, and that's one of the things that we're focusing on and talking about because they're going to be ready. And obviously with the season they've had they know how to prepare."
In the midst of an historic season, the B's wobbled just a bit ahead of their own break in late January, finally losing consecutive games for the first time this season when they went 0-2-1 in the middle three games of a five-game road trip. Even with their late-January hiccup, the Bruins remain seven points ahead of the closest NHL team (Carolina) in the standings, and the gap between the B's and the Canes is greater than that of any other two teams on the League's 32-team standings ladder.
The Bruins came out of the starting gates on fire this season, and they essentially stayed hot until that aforementioned three-game blip late last month, the first and only time they've lost consecutive games this season. Boston has had a pair of seven-game winning streaks this season and it has had another six-game winning run as well. More importantly, the Bruins are more than 50 games into the campaign, and they have yet to go consecutive contests without collecting a point. They've built up enough early-season standings equity to essentially ensure themselves of a berth in the Stanley Cup playoffs, regardless of how they finish.
Most recently, the Bruins finished off their five-game road trip with a 5-2 win over the Maple Leafs on Feb. 1, enabling them to finish up the trip with a 2-2-1 mark.
