Dec. 30 vs. Nashville Predators at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Nashville Predators (19-16-1)
Washington Capitals (17-11-5)
The Caps drop into the District to host the Nashville Predators on Saturday night in Washington’s final home game of calendar 2023. Saturday’s contest is the second and final meeting between the two clubs this season; the Preds downed the Caps 3-1 two Saturday nights ago in Music City.
Saturday’s game is also the back half of a set of back-to-back games for both the Capitals and the Predators. While the Preds were taking a 5-4 overtime loss at the hands of the Red Wings in Detroit, Washington was on the wrong end of a second straight 5-1 road setback in a span of three nights, first to the Rangers in Manhattan on Wednesday and then to the Islanders at USB Arena on Friday.
Even worse than Friday’s loss on the scoreboard, was the loss of a pair of top performers for the Caps through the season’s first half. Goaltender Charlie Lindgren and defenseman Martin Fehervary both departed simultaneously, just ahead of the seven-minute mark of Friday’s game, both with upper body ailments.
Lindgren was struck up high by a Brock Nelson shot about 90 seconds into the game, and he appeared to be unsuccessfully trying to shake it off for the next five minutes of playing time before yielding the crease to Darcy Kuemper at 6:46 of the first period, at the game’s first television timeout. Fehervary had both of his feet cut out from under him by Isles’ captain Anders Lee behind the Washington net, and the unpenalized trip sent him hurtling headfirst into the back wall.
After the game, Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery announced that both players would be lost “for the foreseeable future.” That means the Caps will need to summon a goaltender – almost certainly Hunter Shepard – from AHL Hershey ahead of Saturday’s game with the Preds. Washington is currently carrying two extra defensemen; both Alex Alexeyev and Ethan Bear are available to step in during Fehervary’s absence. Bear would seem to be poised to make his Caps’ debut on Saturday.
Also of concern are Washington’s ongoing offensive woes. Friday’s game was the third straight game in which it was held to a single goal, and it was also the 13th time in just 33 games this season that the Caps weren’t able to score as many as two goals in a game.
“Just come down with the puck and find the right play,” says Caps’ captain Alex Ovechkin. “We’re experienced enough to hold the puck in a critical situation and make the right decision. But it seems like sometimes we try to make too fancy of a play. We’re not generating enough.”
The Caps have managed to score just nine goals at 5-on-5 over their last eight games, remarkably scraping points from five of the eight (3-3-2). But as they prepare to take on the Predators, the Caps are sitting on a season-high three-game losing streak (0-2-1), the third time this season they’ve been in this situation. They have yet to lose three straight games in regulation in 2023-24, a fate they’ll be seeking to avoid when they host Nashville in the final game of calendar 2023 for both clubs.
Carbery sought to spark some scoring by switching up his line combinations ahead of Friday’s game, but those changes didn’t lead to any real cohesiveness or connectivity for the Caps offensively in the loss to the Isles.
“Yeah, I think it’s more than just the [offensive] zone,” says Caps’ defenseman John Carlson. “But certainly in the [offensive] zone, we’re having trouble getting it to the middle as much as we’d like. And the chances that we do have are definitely not going in, either.
“So there’s a combination of everything, but I think that stretches certainly [Friday], maybe not in the past but certainly tonight. People weren’t making the same reads. It just felt disconnected, whether it was a breakout, whether it was a line rush, a sort out, a come-back, all those sorts of things.”
Two weeks ago in Nashville, Washington’s lone goal came off the stick of T.J. Oshie on a 5-on-3 power play. That victory over the Caps was the Predators’ 13th in a span of 16 games (13-3-0). But the Preds have cooled off a bit since; they’ve dropped four of five (1-3-1), and they will also enter Saturday’s game carrying a three-game losing streak (0-2-1).
On Friday in Detroit, the Preds squandered two-goal, three-point efforts from both Filip Forsberg and Gustav Nyquist. Nashville led 3-2 entering the third period, but it wasn’t able to close the deal, settling for a single point. Previously, the Preds dropped home games to Dallas ahead of the NHL’s holiday break and to Carolina immediately after.
Saturday’s game concludes a quick two-game trip for the Predators, who will return home to face Chicago on Tuesday in the opener of a two-game homestand.
