Caps Host Devils in Season Finale
Caps conclude '22-23 campaign vs. motivated New Jersey squad on Thursday night
Six months and a day after they opened the 2022-23 season at home against Boston, the Capitals close out one of their most difficult and trying seasons in recent memory on Thursday night when they host the New Jersey Devils at Capital One Arena. A star-crossed season in which Washington has amassed well over 400 man-games due to injury finally comes to a merciful end on Thursday when the playoff-bound Devils come to the District.
With a revolving door lineup for virtually the entire season, the Caps weren't able to catch the necessary traction to climb into playoff contention in the season's second half, when they were unable to string together as many as three consecutive wins at any point. For the second straight season, Washington did not have a single game with a full complement of players, and on many nights more than a handful of players were missing from its lineup.
Washington's longest stretch of games with the same 20 skaters in the lineup was four games from Nov. 25-Dec. 3, achieved in the first four games of a six-game road trip, and just ahead of the team's most prosperous stretch of the season, a 10-1-0 run from Dec. 5-27.
Mathematically eliminated from playoff contention several games back, a depleted and undermanned group of Caps has limped its way to the final game of the season. In three of the last four games, the Caps have played a skater short because of salary cap/injury constraints. In dropping its road finale to the Bruins in Boston on Tuesday night, Washington lost goaltender Charlie Lindgren to what appeared to be a lower body injury. The Caps were already playing with seven players out injured before Lindgren went down, and more than a few who have remained in the lineup are hobbled as well.
Even in that mounting adversity - and in a stretch of four games in six nights to close out the campaign - the Caps have played well, they've battled gamely and they've hung in against a trio of strong Eastern teams with much more to play for as the regular season winds to a close.
On Saturday night in D.C., the Caps dropped a 4-2 decision to the Panthers when Matthew Tkachuk snapped a 2-2 tie with exactly a minute left in regulation. Two nights later at Capital One Arena, the Caps prevailed 5-2 over the New York Islanders to end a six-game slide (0-5-1). And on Tuesday in Boston, they entered the third period down 2-1 to the Bruins, who were aiming to break the single-season NHL standard for points, a mark that stood since 1976-77, prior to Boston's 5-2 Tuesday triumph over the Caps. The Bruins now have 133 points with a game to play with which to add to their own record.
"There were guys out there tonight that you could visibly see them giving everything they had," said Caps' coach Peter Laviolette after Tuesday's game in Boston. "They were working. And it's tough, but I think based on [playing] Monday night and the travel and coming in here, it's a tough opponent. And our guys, they competed. There's a lot of guys out there that gave everything they had."
Washington has combined to block a total of 68 opposition shots in its last three games, with a high of 27 in Monday's game against the Islanders, a game in which New York teed up a whopping total of 94 shot attempts.
"I think we've been a tough team to play against the last couple of nights," says Caps' winger Tom Wilson, who has scored in each of the last three games. "We've been giving it our all, and we've put some pretty good teams to the test and made them work. We're taking pride in our game, and we're just trying to leave it out there."
They'll look to do exactly that on Thursday night in the season finale against New Jersey, which does have a little something to play for on the final night of the season. New Jersey enters Thursday's game with 51 wins and 110 points, and one more victory would gave the 2022-23 edition of the Devils the all-time single-season franchise standards in both categories. The 2008-09 Devils also had 51 wins, and the 2000-01 Cup Final runner-up team finished with 111 points.
More importantly, the Devils could still claw their way to their first-ever Metropolitan Division title and their first division crown since they conquered the Atlantic Division with 103 points in 2009-10. The Devils come into the finale a single point behind Carolina (111) for the top spot in the Metro. If New Jersey can get past the Caps and the Canes come away with fewer than two points in their final game in Florida on Thursday, the Devils would finish atop the Metro and would draw the first wild card team in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs next week.
