Caps Host Hawks
Caps open four-game homestand vs. Chicago on Thursday
The Caps open up a four-game homestand on Thursday night against the Chicago Blackhawks, their longest stretch at home this season. The Hawks hit town for the first time in more than three years, since a 4-2 Washington win here on Nov. 21, 2018.
Thursday's game is the first of 13 December games for the Capitals, who finished out November on a 9-2-1 run that was marred in their final period of the month on Tuesday night in Florida. Washington let a three-goal lead slip away in the third, falling 5-4 on Sam Reinhart's goal with 14.4 seconds left.
Florida poured 27 shots on Ilya Samsonov in the final period, doing so against a Caps team that entered the game with an average of 27.3 shots permitted per game, the stingiest number in the League. The Panthers scored four times, denting the Caps' penalty-killing unit for the game-tying and game-winning goals in the back half of the period.
For the final 20 minutes of what was still a rather remarkable 9-3-3 month of hockey over a busy and challenging 30 days, the Caps looked as though they were trying to catch a runaway train.
"It's kind of weird," says Caps forward Connor McMichael of Tuesday's loss. "I think we let our guard down a little bit, and we kind of thought that the game was already over. It's just unacceptable and we've got to be a lot better than that."
After returning home from Florida in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the Caps took a scheduled day off. They'll reconvene on Thursday morning for a pregame skate in preparation for the homestand opener against Chicago.
Only five of Washington's 15 games last month were played at home, but the Caps will carry a four-game home ice winning streak into Thursday's game. The Caps scored at least four goals in all four of those victories, outscoring the opposition by a combined total of 21-10 in the process.
One of the bright spots of Tuesday's tough loss in Florida was Beck Malensytn's goal in the first period, the first goal of his NHL career. Malenstyn became the seventh Washington rookie to score his first goal in the League this season, and the second to do so in as many games. In the first game of the Caps' two-game, month-ending road trip, Aliaksei Protas netted his first career goal on Sunday afternoon in Carolina in a 4-2 Washington win over the Hurricanes.
Malenstyn made his NHL debut with Washington just over two years ago, getting into a trio of NHL games in November of 2019. Recalled from AHL Hershey less than a week ago, he was skating in his seventh NHL game on Tuesday when he took a feed from fellow freshman Brett Leason and beat Florida goalie Sergei Boborovsky to give the Caps a 2-0 lead early in the first period.
Malenstyn later assisted on Nick Jensen's to notch his first career assist and first career multi-point game, a satisfying achievement for a guy who missed the entire 2020-21 season because of surgery and subsequent rehab to repair a torn Achilles' tendon.
"I think coming through training camp felt it really good," says Malenstyn. "The injury wasn't really nagging me at all. And then as the season began to start up there, it was the road trips and it was the back-to-back games. I definitely just had to get used to that a little bit again. You can't really train for it; you don't really know how it's going to feel.
"I'm starting to feel a lot better now. I'm a lot more comfortable and confident, and I feel like I'm back to myself fully, which is great."
Playing on a line with Leason and Mike Sgarbossa, Malenstyn has shown good speed, a willingness to finish his checks and a knack for forechecking, which is how he picked up the assist on the Jensen goal. Malenstyn and his linemates have earned some trust from the coaching staff and have seen some ice time at key moments of tight games in the last week.
"I think it's huge for your confidence," says Malenstyn. "Just to know that what you're doing shift in and out is being recognized and is valued. I think we've done a really good job of just continuing to be simple, getting pucks into the offensive zone, trying to stay in the offensive zone and limit the time that we're defending. And if we can continue to do that, I think it's just going to continue to build for us."
After coming into Washington early in the 2018-19 season, the Blackhawks were slated to make their lone District appearance of 2019-20 late in the campaign, on March 14, 2020. That date ended up falling two days after the NHL season was paused because of the pandemic, and each of Washington's final 13 games that season were never played.
A dismal start on the ice led to the dismissal of head coach Jeremy Colliton in Chicago early this season. Derek King has since been installed as the team's interim head coach. At the time of Colliton's dismissal, the Hawks were 1-9-2, and they've rallied to go 6-3-0 in the first nine games of King's tutelage. Most recently, they dropped a 2-0 home ice decision to San Jose on Sunday.
Chicago opens a three-game road trip in Washington on Thursday. The Hawks are slated to play three games in four nights on this trip; they face the Rangers on Saturday and the Islanders on Sunday in New York.
