Caps Battle With Sabres
Two teams seeking to stay in the playoff hunt tangle on Wednesday in D.C. when Caps open brief homestand vs. Buffalo
Fresh from a road heavy stretch in which they played six of their last seven games away from the friendly confines of Capital One Arena, the Caps are back in the District to start a two-game homestand on Wednesday night against the Buffalo Sabres. The game concludes the season's series between the two clubs, and also finishes up a set of back-to-back games for the Capitals.
On Tuesday night in New York, a sluggish start doomed the Caps in a 5-3 loss to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden in the front end of the back-to-back set, and the finale of the team's two-game mentors' trip. The Caps fell down 3-1 in the first period and trailed 4-1 before the five-minute mark of the second, and the hole proved to be too deep.
"The first period wasn't good enough," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "They were quicker than we were with different things. They beat us to pucks; they beat us to spaces. We were a little slow at moving pucks out of our end, moving our feet, moving our minds, moving our game.
"Everything had to be quicker, and we've done a really good job of that the first few times we played them, and we did a good job last game against the Islanders. But we didn't have that pace in the first period, and they came out on their toes and ready to play, and we were second in a lot of areas."
Ahead of Saturday's game against the Islanders in New York, the Caps got injured defensemen Martin Fehervary and Nick Jensen back after each missed the previous three games with injuries. The results were good, the Caps turned in one of their more complete efforts of the season in a 5-1 victory. Watching that game, one couldn't help but wonder what those same 18 skaters might be capable of doing if they could stay intact and in the lineup for the final 15 games of the season.
Alas, it was not to be. Washington's lineup has been a revolving door and the Caps have not played with a full deck of cards for 150 straight games now, dating back to the beginning of last season. In between Saturday's win and Tuesday's puck drop in New York against the Rangers, the Caps lost captain Alex Ovechkin (lower body) and winger Sonny Milano (non-COVID illness), the left winger on what has been their most dangerous and prolific line for the last three weeks.
"At the end of a season like that, it's a long stretch, long season," says Caps winger Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who scored Washington's first goal in Tuesday's loss. "We have the depth on the team to recover from that. I think it's really good to have [Fehervary and Jensen] back on the defense but I think we need find a way either way, with or without some of the guys."
Now the Caps take on the upstart Sabres, who've beaten them twice in as many meetings this season, most recently handing them a 7-4 thrashing in Buffalo on Feb. 26, a game that was also the second of back-to-backs, and a game that immediately followed a meeting with the Rangers on the front end. The Caps defeated the Rangers at home by a 6-3 count on Feb. 25 before falling in Buffalo the next day. They'll seek to reverse those results from a couple of weekends back against a Sabres team that has the same number of points (71) as Washington, but it has played two fewer games.
"We've got to win, we've got to win a game," says Laviolette. "This is one of the teams that's in the standings with us, and we've got to win a hockey game. It's that simple. We've got to be better - right from the beginning - than we were [Tuesday in New York]. We weren't good enough to start the game, we fell into a big hole, and although we tried to climb out of it, you go down 3-1 in games and typically you don't climb out of those holes.
"And so we've got to be better at the start [Wednesday], but it's obviously a big game for us where you just look at the standings and the teams around you, and this is a game we've got to win."
Buffalo halted a four-game spiral (0-3-1) with a 4-3 win over the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Monday night in the opener of a three-game road trip. Following Wednesday's date with the Capitals in D.C., the Sabres travel on to Philadelphia where they'll face the Flyers on Friday night.
Of all the teams still remaining within reasonable striking distance of a playoff spot in both conferences, the Sabres are the team that has allowed the most goals. Buffalo yields an average of 3.61 goals per game this season, ranking 26th in the NHL in that department. Since their 7-4 victory over Washington in Buffalo on Feb. 26, the Sabres have been dented for 36 goals against in their last eight games, a span that includes a 10-4 thumping on home ice at the hands of the Dallas Stars last Thursday. Buffalo is 2-5-1 in those eight games.
