Jan. 14 vs. New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden
Time: 1:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (20-14-6)
New York Rangers (26-13-2)
The Caps and Rangers conclude a set of weekend back-to-backs and their 2023-24 season’s series on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. Washington took a 3-2 victory over New York at Capital One Arena on Saturday afternoon in the front end of the set.
Saturday’s victory was huge for Washington, which played without captain Alex Ovechkin (lower body) for the first time this season. The Caps had to rally from a one-goal deficit at the outset of the third, and they did so, getting the tying tally from Nic Dowd and the go-ahead marker from T.J. Oshie before the midpoint of the third. From there, the Caps and goaltender Charlie Lindgren held on, enabling the Caps to finish their five-game homestand with a 2-3-0 mark.
But if Saturday’s victory – and this weekend – is to be truly meaningful for the Capitals, they need to find a way to get Sunday’s rematch in New York, too. It’s the last of 19 games against Metro Division opponents for the Caps in the first half of the 2023-24 regular season. No team in the League had more divisional games in the first half of the season than Washington did, and that means the Caps will also have the fewest divisional games (seven) of any team in the NHL in the season’s second half.
Sunday’s game gives the Caps a chance to string together consecutive wins for the first time in more than three weeks, and it gives Washington one last chance to shrink the standings distance between itself and the frontrunning Rangers in the Metro Division standings.
If they win Sunday’s game in regulation, the Caps will pull to within six points of the Rangers in the ever-tightening Metro standings. If they lose in regulation, then they’ve spent the weekend on the hamster wheel, and they’re 10 points back, right where they were at puck drop for Saturday’s contest.
The Caps know that defeating the Rangers twice in as many days will be much more difficult than winning Saturday’s game at home over the Blueshirts.
“Yeah, it will be,” agrees Oshie. “I feel like [the Rangers] will probably have a different game plan at the start of the night. And as far as their intensity and everyone’s focus, I think that has to be there first shift, and that’s it; then we roll from there.
“But we cannot feel good about winning a tight 3-2 game and feel like it’s going to be easy the next game. It’s going to be harder. And that’s where we need some leadership and some maturity going into [Sunday’s game]. Match their intensity, and then just push back.”
Washington was better at getting to the middle of the ice offensively on Saturday, and it was also better at keeping the Rangers out of that area. One area where the Caps could certainly stand to improve is on the face-off dot. The Caps won just three of 17 first-period draws (18%) in Saturday’s game, and by game’s end the Rangers held a lopsided 41-18 advantage in face-offs won.
The Caps defended well on Saturday, but they also had to defend more than they would have liked. Winning more faceoffs on Sunday in the second half of back-to-backs for both sides is imperative for the Capitals.
“That’s one area that we will definitely pay attention to,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “We’ve got to do a way better job. We get scored on [on New York’s second goal Saturday] on a [defensive] zone win, and it’s not just on the center men. We’ve got to help them with wingers, we’ve got to help them with our [defensemen] jumping in. We’ll talk about that and look at a couple of different things.”
The Rangers have dropped four straight games (0-3-1), their longest dry spell between victories this season. They played well defensively on Saturday, limiting the Caps to just 21 shots on net. But Washington also defended well, holding the Rangers to two goals, and to just 27 shots on net.
Despite losing each of their previous three games coming into Saturday’s contest, the Rangers fired more than 40 pucks on the opposition nets in each of those three games. It’s the first time in 16 years the Blueshirts managed that many shots in three straight games.
“They’re not dropping right now,” laments Rangers’ coach Peter Laviolette. “Sometimes they drop, sometimes they don’t. I feel like we’ve had some looks and some chances, and they’re not dropping.
“Their defense was pretty good [Saturday], and their goaltending was pretty good. We didn’t get up to 40-45 shots, but we still had some quality looks, couldn’t get them to go.”
