Nov. 29 vs. Los Angeles Kings at crypto.com Arena
Time: 10:30 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (10-6-2)
**Los Angeles Kings (13-3-3)
**
Washington’s five-game western road trip continues on Wednesday night in Los Angeles when the Caps take on the Kings in the front end of a set of back-to-back contests. The Caps will conclude their November slate of games on Thursday night in Anaheim against the Ducks in the middle match of the tour.
The Caps’ long journey got off to an inauspicious start on Monday night in San Jose in a 2-1 loss to the Sharks. Luke Kunin’s power-play goal in the back half of the third period snapped a 1-1 deadlock and gave the Sharks just their fifth victory in 22 games this season.
Entering Monday’s game, Washington was – along with Los Angeles and the New York Rangers – one of only three teams in the circuit that had yet to suffer consecutive regulation setbacks this season. But Monday’s loss in San Jose coupled with a 5-0 Black Friday blanking at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers in the District removes the Caps from that short list.
Before suffering those consecutive losses, the Caps were on a 9-1-1 roll, which is exactly the record of the Los Angeles Kings in their previous 11 games, going into Wednesday’s tilt here.
The Caps are now facing one of the biggest challenges they’ve faced to this point of the young season, trying to get their offense back on track against the stingy Los Angeles defense. When the Caps manage to score three or more goals, they are an impressive 9-0-1 this season. When they do not manage to score as many as three goals, they’re a mere 1-6-1.
Coming into Wednesday’s game, the Caps have netted just one goal on 59 shots on net in their last 120 minutes of action, and they’re more than a month removed from their most recent power-play goal, a Dylan Strome strike on Oct. 27 against Minnesota.
“I think it’s a bunch of things,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery, who has had to speak more than he would like on the topic this season. “Power play, top six scoring, finishing opportunities, traffic, rebounds, screens, tips – there's a lot of stuff that goes into scoring, and we just haven't done it at a real high level all year, power play wise, but also I feel like it's translated to the 5-on-5 as well throughout the year, and so that's what we're trying to work with our guys on.
“How do we create more? And then if we're able to create more, good, but then how do we make good on the quality chances that we're creating, and how do we take advantage? It's not an easy answer. It's really, really difficult to score in this league, and that's why players get paid a lot of money to score goals. And we just for whatever reason – and I know I've talked about this at the beginning of the year – our guys throughout our lineup have been really, really snake bit. Other than Stromer, there's no one really that's clipping at a real high level, 18 games into the season, from a production standpoint, and from a finishing standpoint.”
Given the strength of their goaltending and defense to this point of the season, it’s tantalizing to wonder what the Caps might look like and might be able to achieve if they can get those three-plus pucks behind opposition netminders with more frequency and consistency. Washington has allowed 2.78 goals against per game, ranking ninth in the League in that department. But with 2.33 goals per game, the Caps rank 31st in the League, ahead of only San Jose (1.64).
“I think throughout the season, we’ve been really good defensively,” says Caps’ forward Connor McMichael. “Our goaltenders have been rocks back there for us, and we just haven’t been able to score enough goals for them, and it’s something that we’re working on.
“For me, I think the biggest thing is scoring in different ways. I feel like we don’t have a lot of goals coming from the [defensemen] up top with traffic in front, just as an example. There’s a bunch of different things that we can do to produce more.”
The Capitals will need to do those things against the Kings on Wednesday. The Kings allow the second fewest goals (2.37 per game) in the NHL, and the fourth fewest shots per game in the circuit (27.7). Over the life of their current 9-1-1 run, the Kings have been even more miserly in their own end, yielding just 1.55 goals against per game over that stretch.
Los Angeles has also excelled at the opposite end of the ice in the season’s first quarter. The Kings and the Vancouver Canucks are atop the NHL ledger with an average of exactly four goals per game each, going into Tuesday’s slate of activity around the League.
The Kings have rolled out to a very strong start in the top-heavy Pacific Division; they’ve been able to keep pace with fellow fast starters Vegas and Vancouver despite playing three fewer games than both of those clubs.
Los Angeles has won each of its first nine road games this season; the Kings are the only team in the League that has collected every possible point from the road to this point of the season.
