Feb. 6 vs. Montreal Canadiens at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Montreal Canadiens (20-21-8)
Washington Capitals (22-18-7)
Following a break of nine days in duration for their bye week and the NHL’s All-Star break, the Capitals are back in action on Tuesday night when they host the Montreal Canadiens at Capital One Arena. Tuesday’s tilt starts a stretch of four games in six nights for the Caps, who will head out on a two-game road trip – the team’s annual Mentors’ Trip – later in the week, and they’ll return home to host the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday afternoon in Washington’s annual Super Bowl Sunday matinee.
On Monday at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, the Capitals reconvened for the first time in over a week, conducting the team’s first full practice as it prepares for a busy week ahead. Ahead of Monday’s practice, the Caps recalled veteran center Mike Sgarbossa from AHL Hershey. Later in the day, the NHL/NHL Players’ Association supplied some additional context to the Sgarbossa recall; Caps’ center Evgeny Kuznetsov is entering the NHL and NHLPA’s Player Assistance Program.
According to the joint announcement from the League and the NHLPA late on Monday afternoon, Kuznetsov will be unavailable to the Caps for an indefinite period while he receives care from the NHL and NHLPA’s Player Assistance Program. Under the terms of the joint program, Kuznetsov will be able to return to the team when cleared for on-ice competition by the program’s administrators.
When the Caps emerged from the three-day holiday break in late December, they weren’t as sharp or as crisp as they were going into the pause. Consistency in many aspects of their game proved to be elusive, and their positioning in the Metro Division and Eastern Conference standings slipped as a result over the last several weeks. Washington’s 5-9-2 record from Dec. 27 to now ranks 29th in the NHL over that stretch, and that rugged 16-game stretch has dimmed the team’s playoff hopes with the March 8 trade deadline looming ahead on the horizon.
Washington has 35 games remaining, and it will play those games in a span of 71 days. That’s a frenetic pace for a team that played its first 34 games of this season over a much more leisurely span of 83 days. Fourteen of those final 35 games will be played between now and the trade deadline, and the Caps know they’ll need to come out of the break with some fire and some consistency in order to reassert themselves in the chase.
That process started on Monday when the players spent an hour shaking off the rust of a week’s worth of time away from the ice.
“The first portion of the practice was to get us up and running from a pace of play, skating, getting the cobwebs out, per se,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “And the second part was to get our brains turned back on at 5-on-5, so some structure play, communication reads, line combination stuff. That was more geared to some line rush coverage, and situations that we need to get our brains back and firing [Tuesday] and be sharp in those areas. So we spent a good amount of time doing that.”
At Monday’s practice, Sgarbossa – whose 36 assists in 44 games with Hershey this season lead the AHL – occupied the middle of a line with Anthony Mantha on his left and Aliaksei Protas on his right. Max Pacioretty, who left the Dallas game early in the third period with a lower body injury, was a full participant on Monday, while Sonny Milano is still sporting a light blue, non-contact sweater nearly two months after he last suited up.
Washington suffered through a 0-3-1 road trip in the week leading up to its midseason break. In losing the first three games of that trip, the Caps suffered their first set of three straight regulation losses all season. In the Jan. 27 trip finale at Dallas, the Caps staged a furious late rally, scoring a pair of goals in the final two minutes of regulation to force overtime. Although the Caps fell to the Stars in the extra session, being able to scrape a point from that final game of the trip allowed Washington to avoid coming home empty-handed; it hasn’t come home with nothing to show from a trip of four or more games in duration in over four decades now.
As they embark upon the season’s stretch drive, the Caps are saddled with a four-game losing streak for just the second time this season. They went 0-2-2 sandwiched around the holiday break, and they will be looking to halt a 0-3-1 tailspin when they take on the Canadiens on Tuesday. The Caps appeared to need some time away as they staggered into the break, and hopefully they’ve used the time away to refresh, recharge and reset for the final 10 weeks of the regular season.
“I think it can depend,” says Caps’ center Dylan Strome. “If your team is playing really well and you’re in a good groove, then it might suck. But for us, it came at a perfect time. We obviously weren’t playing our best hockey, but we were battling and trying to find ways to win. I think the scores of some of those games were a bit misleading toward the end, the last couple of games.
“I don’t feel like Colorado was a 6-2 game; but obviously they got four goals from [Nathan] MacKinnon. But we still lost four in a row, and it’s a nice little break to reset, forget about it, go back and pretend like we’re starting all over again. We’re a couple of points out, we’ve got to battle, and we know what we’re up against. It’s going to be a grind, but I think we’ve got some success lined up, and we’re looking forward to it.”
They’ll start by facing a Montreal team that’s also been idle since Jan. 27. Both teams will be seeking to shake off the remnants of their recent layoff.
“You’ve got to get those competitive juices back up and flowing,” says Carbery. “And more specifically, we’re trying to get something out of those 1-on-1’s in an area that we’ve got to get better at – offensively and defensively – in those isolated 1-on-1 situations, whether it’s in the offensive zone and being able to get out of those situations and being able to create something offensively, or defensively being able to shut those plays down. So there’s a specific need for us to improve, which we’ll pay more attention to in the second half.”
Montreal comes into Tuesday’s game with three fewer standings points and two more games played than Washington. The Habs’ position – and likely the team’s inability to string together more than two consecutive victories at any point yet this season – convinced the brass to move impending unrestricted free agent center Sean Monahan, who was dealt to Winnipeg over All-Star weekend. Montreal got an excellent return for the veteran pivot, receiving the Jets’ first-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft plus a conditional third-round choice in 2027.
Washington hasn’t seen the Habs since Oct. 21, when it dropped a 3-2 overtime decision In Montreal on Cole Caufield’s game-winner in the first minute of the extra session. Tuesday’s game marks Montreal’s lone visit to the District this season; the Caps and Canadiens will conclude their season’s series on Feb. 17 in Montreal.
