Caps Host Sabres
Caps finish three-game homestand and start off 2023 with Tuesday night tilt vs. Buffalo
After concluding the 2022 portion of their 2022-23 schedule on a high note, the Capitals seek to carry their recent stretch of success over to 2023 when they host the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night. Tuesday's game is the finale of both a three-game homestand for the Caps, and it also marks the first of their three meetings with Buffalo this season.
Washington went into December with a mediocre 10-11-3 record on the season to that point, and it more than doubled its win total over those 31 days in the year's final month. Despite a rugged patch of scheduling - especially early in the month - the Caps went 11-2-2 in December to push their way up to third place in the Metropolitan Division standings.
They put an exclamation point on 2022 with a 9-2 thumping of the Montreal Canadiens here on Saturday afternoon in their final home game of calendar 2022, following up a subpar performance in their previous game against Ottawa, a 4-3 overtime loss on Thursday.
Leading by two goals late in the second period of the Ottawa game, the Caps weren't able to extend that advantage with a power play late in the middle frame. Even worse, their lead shrank to a single goal when they yielded a goal to the Sens in the final 20 seconds of that period.
In Saturday's game against the Habs, Washington found itself in the same situation, sitting on a two-goal lead late in the second period, and on a power play. This time, the Caps got a Dylan Strome goal on the man advantage to push the lead to three at second intermission. They turned the game into a romp with a four-goal outburst in the third.
The Caps had a brief discussion about putting the Ottawa game behind them, and they'll need to put the Montreal game in the rear view now as well. The Habs came to D.C. in the midst of a rugged patch of road-heavy scheduling, and they were out of gas in the final period. The Caps will be facing a much more formidable foe in Buffalo on Tuesday, and that game won't be anywhere near as easy as Saturday's third period appeared to look.
"At one point in that [Montreal] game, it was a little bit frustrating the way we were managing the game and managing the puck," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "We kind of stretched it out there in the third period. I thought we played a much simpler game and managed the puck a lot better in the third period. We cut down on the chances [against] and the odd man rushes and just the turnovers, and so we cleaned things up in the third and we were able to score some goals.
"But I think you talk about everything. Part of that [Montreal] game there was an area where I think we could have been better as well. A couple of games ago, I said, 'We've got to have a quick conversation, look in the mirror and then move past it,' because it wasn't good.
"Same things [apply] here. We're playing a team that's coming in here - and we've talked about it - a team that's winning games right now and was 7-1-1 before they lost this past game. They're capable of scoring a whole bunch of goals; in fact, they're number one in the League. They've got a couple of players on their team that have generated a ton of offense, a few players. And so we're going to have to be sharp with our game defensively, better than I think we were the other night in order to continue to be successful."
With a much more favorable stretch of scheduling now laid out ahead of them, the Caps will seek to continue rolling through their 14 games in January, starting with Tuesday's date with the Sabres.
"We want to take it one game at a time and get points out of every game, and keep moving up the standings," says Caps winger Conor Sheary. "Sometimes looking at the standings and seeing that we've played three or four more games than teams that are below us, it's kind of hard to believe that we've been through that schedule. But we think we're in a good spot. We obviously have room to improve and room to grow, and the slow start hurt us. But if we continue to play the way we are right now, with the easing up of the schedule hopefully we can get rested and get healthy, just grow our team game overall and like I said, keep climbing the standings each game at a time."
Even though Tuesday's game is the finale of a homestand, the January schedule features eight home games and six road contests, and only one longer trip, a mid-month excursion out west to Arizona, Vegas and Colorado, respectively. That takes the Caps right up to the All-Star break and their bye week, and February's schedule is also favorable, with six games at home and just three on the road.
"We're going to welcome that little bit of rest between games, and a homestand with less travel," says Caps center Lars Eller. "It feels like we've been on the road so much for the first two and a half months, more than I ever remember. So we welcome being home more for a little bit, and hopefully we'll play even better when we're a little better rested."
Buffalo has had some ups and downs this season. The Sabres started 7-3-0 before falling into a dreadful November tailspin in which they lost eight in a row - all in regulation - while being outscored by an aggregate count of 38-19. Buffalo had its six-game winning streak halted in a 3-1 loss to the Senators in Ottawa on Sunday, but it will enter Tuesday's game on an 8-2-1 run in its last 11 games. The Sabres have outscored the opposition by a combined total of 48-29 in those 11 contests.
In addition to leading the NHL with an average of 3.91 goals per game heading into Monday's slate of NHL activity, the Sabres also boast the League's third-best power play at 28 percent on the season.
Tuesday's tilt between Washington and Buffalo will feature two of the NHL's three stars from the month of December; Caps' captain Alex Ovechkin (13 goals and nine assists for 22 points in 15 December games) was named the NHL's first star for the month while Buffalo's Tage Thompson (13 goals and nine assists for 22 points in 11 December games) was the League's third star.
