Caps Open Five-Game Homestand vs. Sabres
Washington plays five home games in eight days vs. four different foes, starting Thursday vs. Buffalo
Having just returned from splitting a pair of games in Pittsburgh against the Penguins, the Caps open up a five-game homestand on Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres. Washington went 4-1-1 on a six-game homestand earlier in the season, splitting a pair of games (1-0-1) with the Sabres during that span.
Washington comes into Thursday's games on the heels of one of its most impressive and consistent performances of the season on Tuesday in a 3-1 victory over the Pens. It marked just the third time in 14 games this season that the Caps limited the opposition to two or fewer tallies in a game.
"Defense has been a point of focus for us here over the last little while," said Caps right wing T.J. Oshie in the wake of that win. "Our offense has been doing a pretty good job; we've been getting scoring from up and down the lineup throughout the year it feels like, and our defense hasn't been good enough as a team. And it's something we've been focusing on, we really have. We've been working on it in practice and we've been watching video. And hats off to the guys tonight. Everyone individually and collectively as a group committed to bear down defensively, and to not give their top talent those good looks around the net."
After successfully navigating their way through some early penalty trouble, the Caps outshot the Penguins 37-17 over the game's final 50 minutes and drew five straight power plays in a span of less than 27 minutes.
Finally at full strength health-wise after a number of early season issues with injuries and COVID protocol, and now in the midst of a stretch in which they'll play nine games in 15 days to close out February, the Caps played a game on Tuesday that they believe they can build on.
"I think that's part of it too," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of the adversity his team has dealt with early on in the season. "It's easy just to dust it under the under the rug, but the guys have been through a lot. You talk about the third line and Lars [Eller] and [Conor] Sheary, and those are a couple big injuries in there, and you don't come back and from day one be on top of your game. There's a building process that goes to that, and they were really good [Tuesday night].
"You can go to any point in the schedule and you can pick nine games and they're going to be in 17 days or 19 days, and that's just the way it is, but we should be okay. We haven't played a lot of hockey in the last 10 days, so we should be okay. We've got guys healthy, we played a couple games, we're getting our legs under us, and if we can just continue to build on what we're doing I think that we can continue to move forward as a group."
Tuesday's win stopped the bleeding, and now the Caps seek to make some hay on the homestand.
"Tonight, the focus of this game was obviously getting us back on track, having dropped four [straight] games in a condensed season like this," says Washington defenseman Nick Jensen. "It's not a horrible thing to go through tough times like this, but it was very important to see how we responded [Tuesday] and to get us back on track. Everything went according to plan as far as that went, and hopefully we'll build this up and keep getting better. There are always things we can do better. We didn't play a perfect game, but we played a really good game and I think there's stuff we can keep building up with this one."
While the Caps recently sat idle for a week because two games scheduled for last week in Buffalo were postponed, the Sabres went two weeks without playing any games after their roster became riddled with players who were unavailable due to COVID protocol. Buffalo finally went back to work earlier this week with a pair of home games against the New York Islanders on Monday and Tuesday, losing them 3-1 and 3-0, respectively.
After the Sabres won a 4-3 shootout decision over the Capitals in Washington on Jan. 24, they went 2-1-1 over the remainder of January. But six straight postponements followed, and those games must now be jimmied into the remainder of an already condensed regular season schedule.
Including a 5-3 loss to the Devils in New Jersey on Jan. 31, the Sabres will lug a three-game losing streak into Thursday's game with the Capitals. Buffalo has scored just four goals in those three games, and only one of those tallies was scored at even strength.
