Caps Host Jets
Caps finish up two-game homestand and season's series with Winnipeg on Tuesday
The Caps finish up a two-game homestand and conclude their season's series against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night in D.C. The two teams met in Manitoba's capital city in the middle of last month, with the Caps prevailing 5-2 behind a 40-save performance from Vitek Vanecek in the Washington nets.
Washington has struggled at home of late; in the wake of Sunday afternoon's 4-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks the Capitals are 1-4-1 in their last half dozen games in the District. The Caps also have one victory in their last six overall (1-3-2).
Even the best teams rarely get through an 82-game regular season schedule without some lulls and some travails, and the best teams keep those downturns to a minimum, both in number and in duration. With a strong early season stretch, the Caps were able to bank some points and build up some equity in the standings, and they did so while dealing with an inordinate amount of lineup and roster churn because of injuries and the ongoing pandemic.
But they've been burning through some of that equity since the calendar flipped.
As they enter Tuesday's game with the Jets, seven teams in the Eastern Conference have more wins than Washington (21), which leads the NHL with nine overtime/shootout losses. Consistency within games has plagued them recently, as they've scored first in five straight games but have just one win to show for it (1-3-1) during that span.
"The problem hasn't been that we haven't been playing well," says Caps center Nic Dowd. "It's just that we've had big mistakes or big let-ups or bad periods, and in the NHL it's hard to come back from that."
The Caps have been limited to three or fewer goals in seven straight games, and they've yielded three or more goals in the second period of three of their last five, a recipe that's not conducive for gaining traction in the win column or the standings.
Although they welcomed winger Carl Hagelin and defenseman Dmitry Orlov back to the lineup on Sunday after the pair missed the previous two games in COVID-19 protocol, the Caps also lost two more players to protocol and one to injury over the weekend. Winger Conor Sheary went into protocol just ahead of Saturday's game against the Islanders in New York, and defenseman John Carlson missed his first game of the season on Sunday after landing in protocol soon before the game.
And winger T.J. Oshie left Saturday's game after two shifts because of an upper body injury, an ailment that kept him out of Sunday's game as well. Since playing in the first seven games of the season, Oshie hasn't been able to play in as many consecutive games at any point since. He has missed 21 of Washington's last 32 games, scattered over five separate absences from the lineup since late October. The Caps are 11-2-5 with Oshie in their lineup this season, and they're 10-7-4 without him.
Since Washington and Winnipeg last met almost exactly a month ago - on Dec. 17 - in Manitoba, the Jets have had more games postponed (eight) than they've played (five). But when they've played, the Jets have been good.
After dropping that 5-2 decision to the Caps last month, the Jets downed the Blues 4-2 in Winnipeg two nights later. They haven't played at home since. Winnipeg took two of three on a three-game trip through the Southwest right after the turn of the calendar, then sat idle for a week before blanking the Wings in Detroit by a 3-0 score on Jan. 13 in its most recent game.
With its game in Washington on Tuesday, Winnipeg opens a four-game road trip. The Jets will move on to Nashville, Boston and Pittsburgh, respectively, after departing the District.
