Nov. 4 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Columbus Blue Jackets (4-4-2)
Washington Capitals (4-4-1)
The Caps’ season long five-game homestand continues on Saturday night when the Columbus Blue Jackets make the first of two November visits to Capital One Arena. The Jackets return to the District in exactly two weeks, supplying the opposition for the second game of the Caps’ next homestand, a four-game run that stretches through Black Friday.
In their most recent game on Thursday against the New York Islanders, the Caps thoroughly outplayed the Isles for the first 40 minutes, only to enter the third period trailing 3-0. That ended up being the final score; ex-Caps goalie Semyon Varlamov stopped all 32 shots he faced for the Isles, halting Washington’s three-game winning streak.
Nine games into the 2023-24 season, the Caps are at NHL .500, which is a decent spot for them to be in, given their ongoing difficulties in scoring goals. Washington’s .500 points percentage puts it in a four-way tie for 18th in the League, and of the other three teams tied with them on that ledger, none has scored fewer than 27 goals, though all three have played one more game.
With just 17 goals in nine games thus far, the Caps rank 30th in the League with an average of 1.89 goals per game. They have suffered two shutout losses – both on home ice – where they’ve managed only seven goals – excluding empty netters – in their six games to date. Considering that more than one-third of their total goal output came in one game – a 6-4 win over the Devils in New Jersey on Oct. 25 – the Caps can feel fortunate to be as high as they are in the standings. Washington’s 6.3% shooting percentage ranks 31st in the NHL, ahead of only San Jose (4.0%).
With their three-game winning streak in the rear view, the Caps reset at a Friday practice, and they’ll aim to get back into the win column on Saturday against the Jackets. Even with their anemic offensive output to date, the Caps are afloat in the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference standings, which is a significant plus.
“Of course, yeah, and we’ve talked about it,” says Caps’ defenseman John Carlson. “I think we have high expectations of our group in here, and I think you’ve seen flashes of a really good team in here. But the depth of the Eastern Conference is extreme. Not many teams can expect a 10- or 12-game winning streak, so you can’t be dragged down by a bad stretch.
“The way that we respond is certainly going to be important all season long, but I feel like we responded well to a poor start to the year, and now we’ve got to respond to this.”
Small sample sizes can create statistical anomalies, but small samples are all we have to work with at this point. What’s obvious though, is that the Capitals have played quite a bit better in the last four games than in the first five, a trend they’ll aim to continue on Saturday vs. Columbus.
Washington fell behind 2-0 in each of its first five games, and it controlled only 47 percent of shot attempts in those games, ranking 24th in the NHL over that stretch. The Caps never led in any of those five games, but managed to scrape three points out of 10, going 1-3-1. In the last four games, the Caps have controlled 53.5 percent of shot attempts, which ranks 12th over that span and is enough to push them over 50 percent (50.06) and into 13th place on the season.
“I think we’ve been playing a lot better than how we started the season,” says Washington winger Sonny Milano. “We’ve won three of our last four. Obviously, it didn’t go our way [Thursday], but we’ve got to stay positive, and keep building momentum.”
Following Friday’s practice, Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery announced Charlie Lindgren as his team’s Saturday night starter. Lindgren has not started since getting the opening night start just over three weeks ago, when he played well in a 4-0 loss to Pittsburgh. Lindgren suffered an upper body injury at practice a few days later and subsequently put in a stint on injured reserve, a span in which Hunter Shepard was recalled from AHL Hershey to back up Darcy Kuemper. Shepard won his NHL debut against the Devils in New Jersey on Oct. 25, as the benefactor of the Caps’ biggest single-game offensive output in the season to date.
Columbus comes into Saturday’s game on the heels of a 4-2 home ice win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night. That victory halted a four-game slide (0-2-2) for Columbus, which, like Washington, currently holds a 1-2-0 record against fellow Metropolitan Division opponents.
The Caps missed a chance to hop over the Islanders in the Metro standings on Thursday, but they’ll have another chance to do the same on Saturday against the Blue Jackets. Columbus enters the contest a point ahead of Washington.
