Caps Host Blues on Friday
Caps aim to build on Wednesday's comeback win when they finish quick homestand vs. St. Louis
As uplifting and thrilling as Wednesday's 5-4 comeback victory over Buffalo was, it won't mean much if the Caps are unable to follow it up with another win on Friday night. The St. Louis Blues are in town on Friday to conclude a two-game homestand for the Caps, who will be seeking just their third set of consecutive victories since the turn of the calendar against the Blues.
Down by two goals three separate times in Wednesday's game against the Sabres, the Caps rallied to force overtime on late third-period goals from Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson. Washington skated off with two points when Evgeny Kuznetsov and T.J. Oshie scored in the shootout, and Charlie Lindgren stopped both Buffalo shooters to secure his first triumph since Jan. 31.
Washington won for just the second in nine tries in the back end of back-to-back games (2-6-1) this season and for just the second time in its last eight games at home (2-5-1). Most importantly, the win kept the Sabres behind Washington in the Eastern Conference standings in total points. Buffalo holds two games in hand on the Caps, who woke up on Thursday to a richly deserved day off, their first off day at home in over a month.
Wednesday's game was essentially a must-win game for the Caps, and Friday's is right up there in that realm as well. Without a sustained hot streak over their remaining 13 regular season games, the Caps will not be able to extend their streak of consecutive playoff appearances to nine.
"I think maybe a little bit of a realization of where we're at," says Oshie, asked what went into Wednesday's comeback win. "Every game has to be a playoff mentality for us, and there's no time like the playoffs when you're down goals and able to fuel comebacks. There was some desperation out there that you typically see in the postseason, some big goals out of our big guys, some incredible setup shifts before those goals by [Nic Dowd's] line - one of them was in the third period to get us going.
"There was a lot to like about the way we came back. We probably could clean up three or four decisions where they scored goals; we kind of hung Chucky out to dry there. But other than that, a pretty solid effort by everyone."
As Oshie noted, the big boys came to play Wednesday. Oshie, Kuznetsov, Ovechkin and Wilson scored in regulation, and Dylan Strome extended his point streak to six while Nicklas Backstrom supplied the sublime setup on Wilson's tying tally with 68 seconds left, a 6-on-4 strike with Lindgren pulled for an extra attacker.
And as mentioned earlier, the first two of those goal scorers also did the offensive lifting in the shootout. Returning to the lineup after missing Tuesday's game in New York against the Rangers with a lower body injury, Ovechkin made an impact with a goal and an assist. He has missed six games this season, and the Caps are 0-6-0 in his absence.
"It was in question [Wednesday] morning," said Caps coach Peter Laviolette after the game, speaking to Ovechkin's availability. "If there is a chance that he can play, he is going to play. And we needed him out there. Under the circumstances of him and what he dealt with [Tuesday, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning] getting ready and to jump into that game, I thought he gave us what he had."
Making his first start since Feb. 23, Lindgren got off to an unfortunate start when the first shot he faced - a seeing eye shot from the point - got behind him. After yielding three goals on six shots in the first, he settled in and made several key stops at key moments the rest of the way, none bigger than when he denied Tage Thompson's shot midway through the third, about a minute before the Ovechkin goal.
"Chucky is a competitor," says Oshie. "It's nice to see a goalie that honestly hates getting scored as much in a game as he does in practice. Sometimes that's a rare thing, and I think that's one of the reasons why he was able to hang in there for us after a couple tough bounces, a couple tough odd man rushes, and some back-door plays.
"He's just a competitor, and I wouldn't expect anything less out of him. We've only been together for not even a full season now, but that guy grinds and he won't quit. He showed it tonight."
On Friday against the Blues, the Caps will try to stack a win on top of the one two nights earlier against the Sabres. It's all about the points right now.
"They were a resilient group," says Laviolette. "We fought to the end for the two points, and we finally got them. And that's what it's about right now. Every game we play, it's about the two points and collecting them. And we were able to do that."
That comeback win on Wednesday could be the start of a comeback in the standings, or it could be just another victory in an 82-game season that fell short of hopes and expectations. Friday's game with St. Louis will begin the unfolding of the rest of the tale.
Like the Caps, the Blues offloaded a handful of veteran players ahead of the March 3 trade deadline. St. Louis hung around the outskirts of the Western Conference playoff chase into calendar 2023 before fading to the lower reaches of the pack with a 6-13-2 mark in its last 21 games. Only two of the Blues' last six victories were achieved against teams currently in the playoff picture, and they came consecutively on home ice in the middle of last month: a 6-2 win over Florida on Feb. 14 and a 4-2 victory over New Jersey two nights later.
Most recently, the Blues dropped both ends of a two-game homestand, falling 5-3 to Vegas on Sunday and 8-5 to Minnesota on Wednesday. In the loss to the Wild, Blues goalie Jordan Binnington got involved in a kerfuffle that landed him a two-game NHL suspension on Thursday, so he will not be available to the Blues on Friday in Washington.
On Thursday, the Blues recalled goaltender Joel Hofer from AHL Springfield on an emergency basis to fill in during Binnington's absence. Hofer's younger brother Ryan was a sixth-round pick (181st overall) of the Capitals in the 2022 NHL Draft. Washington signed the younger Hofer to an entry-level NHL contract earlier this month.
