Jan. 27 vs. Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center
Time: 2:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (22-18-6)
Dallas Stars (29-13-6)
On Saturday afternoon in Dallas, the Caps reach the end of their four-game, eight-day road trip when they take on the Stars at American Airlines Center. As they do so, they’ll be seeking to salvage something from what has been a fruitless trip to date.
Washington carries its first three-game regulation losing streak of the season into Saturday’s game, and it is also lugging a four-game road losing streak as it prepares to face the Stars. A week ago, the Caps left the District in a buoyant mood after sweeping a quick two-game homestand with victories over Anaheim and St. Louis – their first set of consecutive triumphs since before Christmas – with each of their goaltenders collecting one of those victories.
The Caps started the trip as a confident group that had limited the opposition to two or fewer goals against in each of four straight games. But Washington has dropped each of the first three games of the trip by multiple-goal margins, and it has not held a scoreboard lead at any point in 180 minutes of hockey played on the trip to date. As they prepare to take on the Stars in the trip finale – and their last game in more than a week; the Caps’ bye week/All-Star break beckons as soon as the final horn sounds in Saturday’s game – they’ve fallen to 11th place in the Eastern Conference standings.
When Washington returned from a five-game Western road trip in early December, it was well aware it was heading into a “make or break” section of the schedule: a grueling, 52-day span in which it would play 25 games while facing a number of elite opponents, it would travel for a dozen straight games, and it would play seven sets of back-to-backs – more than any other team in the NHL over the same span.
The Caps started that stretch with an impressive 5-1-3 mark through the first nine games. But as they get ready to face the Stars on Saturday, they’ve won only five of their last 15 games (5-9-1). They’re in desperate need of a win – any kind of win – on Saturday, to state the obvious.
“It’s a very significant game for our group,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “Closing out the road trip, last game before the break, and just with the way that we’ve been going. We need to find a way to have a real strong performance [Saturday] afternoon to close out the road trip.”
After finishing last season with a six-game road losing streak (0-6-0), the Caps started this season with an 8-5-2 road mark in their first 15 games away from the District. But since the Christmas break, the Caps have fallen on hard times on the road, going 1-6-0 while being outscored by a combined 29-12 in the process.
Entering Friday’s slate of NHL activity, the Caps trail Detroit by five points for the final Eastern Conference wild card berth, and they’re sixth in the Metropolitan Division, six points behind third-place Philadelphia; the Caps do hold three games in hand on the Flyers.
“Obviously, you look around the League and the standings, and we’ve lost three in a row,” says Caps’ center Dylan Strome. “But we’re still in a decent spot; we’ve had some puck luck I guess from [the out-of-town scoreboard], and other teams around us [in the standings] haven’t been winning. So it’s a huge game for us.”
Going into Friday’s slate of NHL activity, the Stars are in third place in the NHL’s Central Division, but Dallas is also just a point away from Winnipeg and Colorado, the current co-occupants of the catbird’s seat in the Central. The Stars are 7-2-1 in their last 10 games, and they’ll be seeking their third straight win overall on Saturday against Washington.
The Stars’ longest winning streak of the season was a modest four-game run back in mid-November, but Dallas has been pulling points consistently all season. The Stars are one of a dwindling handful of teams that has yet to lose more than two consecutive games in regulation all season. Until they fell to the Avalanche in Colorado on Wednesday, the Capitals were also part of that group.
The Stars and Caps first met in Washington on Dec. 7 in the first game of that aforementioned 25-game stretch over 52 days. Dallas avoided what might have been a third straight regulation loss that night with a 5-4 shootout victory over the Capitals. Washington carried a 3-2 lead into the third period of that game at Capital One Arena, but a pair of Roope Hintz goals in the third – sandwiched around a Strome power-play goal – pushed the game to overtime, and the Stars’ Jason Robertson was the only shooter to score in the skills competition.
