Jan. 2 vs. Minnesota Wild at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Minnesota Wild (23-11-4)
Washington Capitals (25-10-2)
The Capitals kick off the 2025 portion of their 2024-25 season and continue their three-game homestand on Thursday night when the Minnesota Wild arrive in town for their lone visit of the season.
In the homestand opener on New Year’s Eve, the Caps skated off with a 3-1 victory over the Boston Bruins, a win achieved mainly via goaltending and special teams. Those same elements have fueled many of the Caps’ recent triumphs.
Jakob Chychrun’s power-play goal late in the first period stood up as the game-winner, and Washington’s penalty killing outfit was needed to snuff out a pair of Boston power plays in the game’s middle period.
Sixteen different Washington skaters – led by Rasmus Sandin with five – combined to block 28 shots in front of Logan Thompson, who was beaten only by Boston’s Justin Brazeau, who scored 81 seconds into the game on a goofy bounce off a stanchion. Thompson closed the door thereafter, making 26 saves to improve to 15-2-2 in his 19 starts this season.
Tuesday’s matinee against Boston was the second meeting in eight days between the two teams, and it was similar to the first, a 4-1 Bruins win in Boston on Dec. 23. Both games were contentious, and time was tight and space was rare at each end of the ice. Led by four each from Tom Wilson and Ivan Miroshnichenko, the Caps also laid 26 hits on the B’s, a number that reflected a disparity in possession.
“There were times in that game when we weren’t playing the way we like to,” says Chychrun. “But it’s a long year; we know we’re not going to have our best stuff every night. It’s a matter of finding ways to win and I think we did that tonight; LT kept us in it.”
Coming out of the four-day holiday break, the Caps played three tightly contested games against Atlantic Division opponents, and they found a way to win two of them. Tuesday’s victory leaves Washington at 8-4-1 for the month of December, and five of the Caps’ victories in the final month of December were achieved despite the team scoring just a single goal at 5-on-5 in those games.
Although the Caps still hold a share of the League lead with 90 goals at 5-on-5 this season, they’ve scored only 21 goals at 5-on-5 in 13 games since the beginning of December, tied for 29th in the NHL last month. The only teams with fewer goals at 5-on-5 were San Jose with 18 and the Rangers with 17. The Sharks were 2-10-1 and the Rangers 3-10-0 last month.
“I think we’ve got to prepare for these types of games because the teams are preparing a little more for us, so we’ve got to be ready for these types of games,” says Aliaksei Protas, whose nine goals led Washington in December. “And I think we are ready; we’ve got a real good team. Everyone is a warrior in that group; you want to win. I think we just have to stick together for the full 60 [minutes] and we will have a chance for success every game.”
The Capitals enter the new year with 25 victories, and with four games remaining before they reach the mathematical midpoint of the season. Between Nov. 3 and Feb. 23 of this season, the current three-game homestand is the longest the Caps will have. They’ve won four straight games at Capital One Arena and are 5-0-1 in their last six games in town. Washington has yielded seven goals against in its last five home games.
Minnesota opens the new year on the road, starting a two-game trip in DC on Thursday and finishing up in Carolina on Saturday night against the Hurricanes. The Wild is 13-3-3 on the road this season, tied with Washington (13-6-0), Colorado (13-7-0), and Winnipeg (13-8-0) for most road victories in the circuit this season.
Despite facing a daunting seven-game October road trip, the Wild wheeled out of the starting gate with a 13-3-3 mark over the season’s first 19 games. Minnesota has played to a 10-8-1 mark in 19 games since, including five straight wins and four consecutive losses.
The Wild arrives in the District on the heels of a 5-3 home ice win over the Nashville Predators on Tuesday. Minnesota blitzed Nashville with a trio of power-play goals in the victory, and Filip Gustavsson made 43 saves to claim his 17th win of the season (17-6-3). The win wasn’t without cost; the Wild lost defenseman and team captain Jared Spurgeon when he was slew-footed in the second period by Nashville’s Zachary L’Heureux, who was assessed a match penalty on the play.
Minnesota is also missing star forward Kirill Kaprizov, who has been sidelined for three games with a lower body injury. Additionally, the Wild has been playing without blueliner Jake Middleton (hand, nine games) and center Jakub Lauko (lower body, eight games).
