Jan. 8 vs. Vancouver Canucks at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: MNMT2
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Vancouver Canucks (18-12-9)
Washington Capitals (26-10-4)
The Caps open a two-game homestand on Wednesday night at Capital One Arena when they host the Vancouver Canucks’ lone visit to the District this season. Wednesday’s game brings the Capitals to the midpoint of the 2024-25 regular season, they’ll be halfway through the campaign at game’s end.
Washington is returning home from a quick trip to western New York where it managed to collect a point out in a 4-3 shootout setback to the Sabres on Monday. Tom Wilson notched his second two-goal game in as many outings against Buffalo this season, and Aliaksei Protas’ goal with 4:13 remaining – combined with a number of gritty saves from Charlie Lindgren – enabled the Capitals to bring home a point from a game in which they weren’t at their collective best.
“We just really struggled in every facet, especially puck play [and] execution,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “We just could not make a play tonight with the puck, a 10-foot pass, or whatever it might be.”
Stalwart Caps blueliner John Carlson laid claim to the biggest achievement of Monday’s game, supplying helpers on Wilson’s second goal and Protas’ tying tally to become the 31st defenseman in NHL history to reach the 700-point plateau. Carlson is one of just 13 blueliners to achieve the feat with the same franchise.
For some perspective, there are nearly three times as many forwards (91) in NHL history with 1,000 or more points. Reaching 700 points as a defenseman is a significant achievement. Among the 25 defensemen who’ve achieved the milestone and who are also eligible for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, 20 have been enshrined.
“That’s huge,” says Carbery. “It’s another accolade for John, and what he has established in his career. He just keeps stacking those things up and it’s another credit to how good his career has been.”
Along with an assist from Jakob Chychrun on Wilson’s first goal – a power-play strike – the Caps added three more points from the back end in Monday’s game. With 104 points (20 goals, 84 assists) in 40 games, the Caps rank second in the NHL in points from the blueline, trailing only Colorado (110 points in 41 games). Washington has already matched its goal output from the blueline from last season (20), and it is 31 assists shy of doing the same.
With an average of 2.6 points per game, the Caps’ defensemen are contributing at their highest collective rate in over three decades, since the ’92-93 edition rolled up 94 goals and 264 points (3.14 per game). While those ’92-93 Caps easily outpaced the rest of the NHL with those 94 goals – no other team had more than 61 – Washington finished second to Los Angeles in blueline scoring (60-213-273) in 1992-93.
Along with consistent contributions from the netminding tandem of Charlie Lindgren and Logan Thompson and both special teams, the surge in offense from the blueline has helped the ’24-25 Caps fashion a plus-40 goal differential through the season’s first 40 games.
“I feel like we’ve defended well and gotten great goaltending,” says Caps defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk, whose 13 assists are one shy of his total from last season, and three helpers shy of his single-season NHL best of 16. “Last year, I think we had a reputation – or whatever you want to call it – where we weren’t scoring much.
“Maybe early on in the season, people looked at our roster and saw it was pretty similar to what it was, and maybe you catch them off guard a little bit. And now you see lately, our games have been more tight checking. Teams see that we’ve been scoring goals and leading the League in goals, and they’re going to come in and have their minds wrapped around that, and once you’re more than 20 games in, you can see it’s no fluke; these guys can put the puck in the net.
“And now you’re getting teams’ best efforts when they see you at the top of the standings, and when that happens, I think you’ve got to start relying a little more on special teams, because it gets harder and harder to score at 5-on-5. And our power play and penalty kill have both stepped up, and when we haven’t been able to find the net, our goalies have done a great job of balancing it out.”
Forty games in, it has all added up to the best point percentage in the Eastern Conference (.700), and most importantly, a steady stream of standings points. The Caps have yet to go more than two games without picking up a point, and they enter Wednesday’s game with an eight-game point streak (6-0-2) at home and a four-game point streak (2-0-2) overall.
Vancouver opened a five-game road trip on Monday in Montreal, falling to the resurgent Habs in overtime, 5-4. JT Miller ended a goal drought of a dozen games with a four-point performance in Montreal; he had two goals and two assists. Miller kept the points coming during his lamp-lighting drought; he had nine assists in those dozen games.
Although the Canucks boast an impressive 11-4-3 road record this season, their last regulation win on the road was on Nov. 26 in Boston when Kevin Lankinen blanked the Bruins on 33 shots for his team’s eighth consecutive road victory. Since then, Vancouver has won only three of its last nine – all in overtime or a shootout – on the road while claiming points in six of its last nine (3-3-3) away from British Columbia.
