March 11 vs. Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (30-23-9)
Winnipeg Jets (40-18-5)
With just over a month remaining in the 2023-24 NHL regular season, the Caps are finally set to get their first look at the Winnipeg Jets when they visit Manitoba’s capital city on Monday night. Nearly two weeks later in Washington – on March 24 – the Caps and Jets will conclude their season’s series in the District in a Sunday matinee affair, the Capitals’ last game against a Western Conference foe this season.
Monday’s game in Winnipeg opens a five-game trip for the Capitals, and the journey is expected to have a significant impact on Washington’s postseason hopes. This week’s trip out west will be crucial in the Caps’ ongoing pursuit of a playoff berth. They’ll be playing five games in eight nights against quality opponents, with a set of back-to-back games in the middle of the week. Washington has to cross the United States/Canada border to play the second of those back-to-backs; it’s one of four border crossings over the course of this nine-day journey.
A 3-0 victory over the Bruins in Boston on Feb. 10 sparked the Caps’ stretch drive resurgence. That Saturday afternoon triumph over one of the beasts of the East halted a vexing six-game slide (0-5-1) for Washington, a skid that was sandwiched around the team’s midseason bye week and the NHL’s All-Star break. Starting with that win over the B’s, the Caps have put together an 8-3-2 run that has them pushing their way up the standings and closer to one of the eight coveted playoff slots in the Eastern Conference standings.
When they went wheels up on a Sunday afternoon flight to Winnipeg, the Caps carried with them a modest two-game winning streak; they whitewashed the Pens in Pittsburgh on Thursday by a 6-0 count, then prevailed over Chicago in a 4-1 Saturday night decision in the District.
Ahead of last week’s trade deadline, the Caps moved a trio of veterans – forwards Evgeny Kuznetsov and Anthony Mantha and defenseman Joel Edmundson – in a series of trades that added five future draft choices to Washington’s cache of draft capital. In each of the last two games, the Caps dressed a lineup that featured a dozen players in their twenties – nine forwards and three defensemen. Another youthful blueliner – 24-year-old Martin Fehervary – is expected to return to game action at some point on this trip; Fehervary has been sidelined since suffering a lower body injury early in a Feb. 17 game in Montreal.
Washington’s gradual influx of youth has occurred over a period of less than two years, and it started with the offseason signing of center Dylan Strome in July of 2022. Strome had a career season with the Caps in 2022-23, piling up 23 goals and 95 points. He is producing at a similar rate (22 goals and 51 points in 62 games) this season, but Strome’s production has been vital in the Caps’ rise over the last month.
Starting with that Feb. 10 game in Boston, Strome leads the Caps with 18 points (three goals, 15 assists), and he is tied for tenth in the NHL in scoring over that span. Caps’ captain Alex Ovechkin has also been productive with seven goals and 15 points in those 13 games.
Much of Washington’s secondary scoring over the last month has come from its younger players. Sonny Milano has played in just eight of those 13 games, but he has collected at least a point in seven of the eight games, totaling six goals and eight points. Hendrix Lapierre has played in just the last six of those games, contributing five goals and seven points. Lapierre has had at least a point in five of those six contests.
Aliaksei Protas (two goals and nine points), Connor McMichael (five goals and eight points), and Beck Malenstyn (two goals and seven points) have also chipped in with more than their fair share, helping the Caps to the eighth best mark in the NHL – from a points percentage perspective – over the last month. The Caps scuffled offensively for much of the first half of the season, but they’ve kicked it into gear in the last month. Washington’s average of 3.92 goals per game since Feb. 10 is second in the circuit over that span, and it’s exceeded only by Nashville’s 3.93.
“Number one, the power play has been good as of late,” says Caps’ defenseman John Carlson. “That obviously buoys a lot and helps a lot, and there have been some big goals in there.
“It’s coming from everywhere; I think a lot of different guys are scoring, a lot of different lines are scoring. That’s the type of team we have right now, and that’s what we need.”
To further Carlson’s point, 18 different skaters have found the back of the net for the Caps in those last 13 games. Seven different players have scored Washington’s 14 power-play goals over that span, and the team’s blueliners have chipped in with four goals and 25 points in one of the most productive stretches of the season in that regard.
“We’ve talked about it over the last month or so,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “I just think we’re doing a better job of just having an attack mindset offensively, of getting more – not just pucks, but people – [to the net], and more frequently.
“So it’s less perimeter and it’s more of an attack mindset in a bunch of different ways – with the puck, without the puck, getting to the interior, and doing a better job of it.”
Special teams have excelled as well; Washington is third in the League in power play efficiency (33.3 percent) since Feb. 10, and its penalty killing outfit ranks fourth with an 83.3 percent kill rate over that stretch.
Where the Caps are seeking some consistency is in their own end; they rank 15th over the last month with an average of three goals allowed per game. Washington has pitched a pair of shutouts over those last 13 games, but it has also endured nights of being dented for eight, six, and five goals against.
Winnipeg is back from a 5-0 Saturday night spanking at the hands of the Canucks in Vancouver, set to open a three-game homestand with Monday night’s game with the Capitals. Even with Saturday’s setback, the Jets are 10-4-0 since Feb. 10, one of the handful of teams with a better mark than the Caps over that span.
The Jets are tied with Colorado for second place in the NHL’s Central Division, and Winnipeg holds two games in hand on the Avs. The Jets trail frontrunning Dallas by four points, and they hold three games in hand on the Stars. On its final multi-game trip of the season from April 9-13 – a three-game trip – Winnipeg will visit both Dallas and Colorado, respectively, after starting the journey in Nashville.
