Jan. 18 vs. St. Louis Blues at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
St. Louis Blues (21-19-2)
Washington Capitals (21-15-6)
The Caps close the door on a quick two-game homestand, and they start a set of home-and home contests on Thursday night at Capital One Arena when they host the St. Louis Blues. The Caps and Blues will then head west, and they’ll meet on Saturday night in the Gateway City, in the opener of a weeklong four-game road trip that brings Washington to its bye week/All-Star break.
Both the Caps and Blues are a game into the second half of their regular season slate, and both have won exactly half of their games played in 2023-24. The Caps have managed to scrape four more points than the Blues through those first 42 games.
In Tuesday night’s homestand opener, the Caps earned a 2-0 whitewash win over the Anaheim Ducks. Darcy Kuemper stopped all 24 shots he faced – half of them in the third period – and the 18 skaters in front of him combined to block 23 shots in downing the Ducks.
Tuesday’s victory gives the Caps two wins in their last three games, and now the Caps will be seeking to stack a couple of wins together for the first time in nearly a month, since they won three straight games from Dec. 17-21.
Washington has put together three straight excellent overall performances, yielding a combined total of just four goals against in its last three games; it yielded a total of five goals against during the aforementioned winning streak in mid-December. The Caps’ last three games represent their best sustained stretch of hockey since before the holiday break, and they’ll be aiming to maintain it over the next five games, a stretch that brings Washington to the last of its prolonged breaks this season; the Caps will be away from action from Jan. 28-Feb. 5 for their bye week and the NHL’s All-Star break.
“I would agree with that,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery, referring to the team’s last three games. “I think all three games we’ve carried play and done a lot of good things offensively. Maybe we haven’t finished at the rate we would like to, but our process through the games especially at 5-on-5 and on the penalty kill [has been good]. The power play has been a little bit spotty; we didn’t have a ton of opportunities [Tuesday] night – I think that’s a one-off – but when we did I liked our power play. The entries were solid.
“I think carrying that momentum and feeling good and confident about our game now as it ratchets up with playing St. Louis twice and going out on the road, our urgency level, I can just say this. We know how important this stretch of games is, and so I feel confident about our group’s understanding of the urgency level and where it needs to be at this point of the year, even though it’s still early and even though we’re in game 42. You probably look and go, ‘Jeez, there’s a long way to go.’ Yeah, there’s a long way to go. But this doesn’t mean a thing if we’re not playing at a high level right now.”
Playing without captain Alex Ovechkin (lower body) for each of those last three games, the Caps have had to be diligent defensively, and they’ve had to be cohesive. Ovechkin had a six-game point streak (two goals, five assists) and had 10 points (three goals, seven assists) when he missed the first of those three games, the only games he has missed all season. He also leads the team with a dozen power-play points (three goals, nine assists), meaning he has had a hand in 80 percent of Washington’s power-play scoring this season.
At Wednesday’s practice, Ovechkin was a full participant.
“A positive step today, with him taking part in a full practice,” says Carbery of Ovechkin. “[That] was one of the hurdles; we needed him to be able to participate in a full practice. And then we’ll gauge [Thursday] whether he’ll be able to play [Thursday] night.”
Without Ovechkin in the lineup, the Caps have done well by paying close attention to their defensive details.
“We’re trying to protect the middle, and not give up odd man rushes,” says Caps’ forward Evgeny Kuznetsov. “And, as much as possible, clean the front of the net so Kuemps can see the puck, or Chucky [Lindgren]. And just get the rebounds.”
After finishing up a four-game homestand with a 4-2 loss to Philadelphia on Monday night, the Blues head to the District for Thursday’s game, then they head right back home to host the Capitals on Saturday night in St. Louis. But it’s a short stay; the Blues are right back on the road after that, embarking on a three-game excursion that takes them to Calgary, Vancouver and Seattle, respectively.
St. Louis has been consistently inconsistent to date to this point of the season. The Blues have had a pair of three-game winning streaks, and they did win five of six games at one point in early November. Their longest losing streak of the season was a four-game slide in the front half of December, a skid that led to the dismissal of head coach Craig Berube, who led the Blues to the only Stanley Cup championship in the franchise’s history in 2019.
