Dec. 20 vs. Carolina Hurricanes at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Carolina Hurricanes (20-10-1)
Washington Capitals (21-8-2)
Coming off consecutive losses for just the second time this season, the Caps host the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night in a meeting of two of the top three teams in the Metropolitan Division standings. The clash between the Caps and the Canes kicks off a busy weekend for Washington leading up to next week’s holiday break; it hosts the Kings on Sunday and visits Boston on Monday.
After dropping both halves of a back-to-back set of road contests early in the week, the Caps took Wednesday off before reconvening at MedStar Capitals Iceplex for a Thursday practice session ahead of their busy weekend.
Just over a month after suffering a fractured fibula in the third period of a game between the Capitals and the Utah Hockey Club in Salt Lake City on Nov. 18, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin appears to be on the verge of returning to the lineup. Although he was again sporting a powder blue non-contact sweater, he again participated in practice with his teammates as he rounds back into form following the longest continuous absence of his 20-year NHL career.
Ovechkin was expected to miss 4-6 weeks at the time of suffering the injury, and his timeline has now been reduced to a day-to-day basis, though he will not play in Friday’s game against Carolina.
“[Ovechkin] practiced in a limited fashion with the group,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “He won’t play tomorrow, and then we’ll sort of see how the next 48 hours goes, and then see if there is the potential of him playing in one of those [last two games before the break], LA or Boston.
“He is getting real close.”
Ovechkin has missed 13 games now, and the Caps have more than held their own without him. The Caps are now 8-4-1 in his absence; they lost the first two and the last two games without him, all four in regulation, and three of the four by the margin of a single goal.
Against the Stars on Monday, the Caps failed to build on a 1-0 first-period lead in a 3-1 defeat in Dallas. Against the Blackhawks a night later in Chicago, they failed to protect a 2-0 lead in the third in a game the Hawks deserved to win more than the Caps did. More than 30 games in, they’ve shown who they are – with and without Ovechkin – and they’ve shown a lot of resilience as well as the knack for finding ways to win whichever type of game develops on a given night.
In what he admitted was a “long winded” reply, Carbery issued a passionate and insightful assessment of his team after Thursday’s practice.
“Yeah, I’m confident in our group,” he began. “It’s a long season, and we’ve played well, and we’ve put ourselves in good spots. In losing [Monday], I thought we played a really good game in Dallas, and you don’t get the result. I thought we were non-existent in Chicago; you don’t get the result.
“But to draw conclusions on who we are as a team from the Chicago game, I think would be – am I allowed to use this word? – idiotic. We just haven’t shown that over the season.
“The one thing that I will say that our team is learning to do – and I was thinking about this [Wednesday] and individual players as well – is I believe, and I’m very confident our locker room believes we’re a top team in the National Hockey League. We’re able to play with the best teams in the League and we believe that we can do something special.
“So now, for a lot of our group, this is a little bit of uncharted territory. This is new for some guys. It’s not like we’ve been [like] the Florida Panthers or the Toronto Maple Leafs; I’m just using those two as an example, of [teams] who’ve been knocking on the door or are Stanley Cup champions – Toronto has been knocking. Yeah, they haven’t had [playoff success], but you know who they are, right?
“We’re sort of learning that we can be a top team in this League, and we can do it consistently. So you’ve got to learn to play with that through an 82-game schedule. We’ve shown it through [31], and now we’ve got whatever, [51] more to go. You’ve got to stay consistent with that. You’re going to have ebbs and flows, but then you’ve got to get yourself out of it, you’ve got to continue to grow your game, you’ve got to get ready to play hard games, you’ve got to get ready to play really good opponents on the road, and all this stuff that we’re trying to learn to do right now.
“This is great before the holiday break; [facing] three really good hockey teams that are mature, and that have been quality teams for quite a few years now. And then also – here’s the other part – is that we have had individual players that have had phenomenal starts to the year; career starts, you could call them. Dylan Strome, Rasmus Sandin, Connor McMichael, Aliaksei Protas; go down the list. [Jakob] Chychrun.
“So now, they’re learning – and on the fly – ‘Okay, I’ve got to do this for 82 [games].’ To be considered an elite, elite player like Dylan Strome in the National Hockey League – to be a 100-point guy, and I’m just using points as an example, I don’t really care about the points – you’ve got to do it for 82. And so he has done it for [31], and now he’s got [51] more to go, and to do that through the grind and be able to have a few off games and then bring it back up and be really [effective again]. That’s going to be our challenge, for our individual players and our team in general as we move forward into the break and past the break, is continuing to be consistent with it and – when you’ve got a target on your back and you’re sitting at the top of the standings or at the top of the division and you’re going to get everybody’s best – we’re learning how to play within that.
“Teams are defending us way harder now, I notice. At the beginning of the year, we got way more odd man rushes, breakaways, 2-on-1s. In the Dallas game, we got zero odd man rushes. So we’ve got to find a way – Dylan Strome, Connor McMichael – to create offense in an environment against a tough team that defends well; you get no 2-on-1s tonight. How are you going to create offensively and have two points tonight? That’s sort of our next step as a team and players.”
The Caps will head into the holiday break after this busy weekend of three games in four nights that concludes with a set of back-to-back games, and they’ll jump back into action after the break with another set of back-to-backs, and with three games in four nights. Washington returns to action with road games on consecutive nights – Dec. 28 in Toronto and Dec. 29 in Detroit – before concluding the 2024 portion of the 2024-25 campaign with a New Year’s Eve matinee match at home against Boston.
As they start a stretch of four straight games on the road – including three of them in a span of four nights between now and the NHL’s holiday break – the Canes hit town on the heels of a successful four-game homestand in which they won three of four (3-1-0). Most recently, Carolina whitewashed the New York Islanders 4-0 on Tuesday night in the homestand finale.
After Friday’s game in the District, the Canes face the Rangers in New York on Sunday afternoon and the Predators in Nashville on Monday night, Carolina comes out of the holiday break with a home-and-home set of back-to-backs against New Jersey, starting Dec. 27 in Newark.
