Caps Take on Lightning in Tampa
Washington opens a road-heavy November slate with a pair of games in Florida, starting Monday against the Lightning
The Caps open up a busy and road-heavy slate of November games on Monday night in Tampa against the Lightning. The contest kicks off the Caps' first multi-game road journey of the season, and is the first of 15 November games, 10 of which will be played away from Capital One Arena.
October went well for Washington. The Caps picked up a point in all eight games they played, and they'll go into Monday's game against the Lightning with a chance to match the franchise record for most games with a point at season's outset. The Capitals established that standard last season when they earned points in nine straight games (6-0-3).
Washington's 5-0-3 mark in the season's first month marks the first time in franchise history the Caps were able to get out of October unscathed by a regulation loss. The team's .813 points pct. is a franchise record for the month of October.
Most recently, the Caps blanked the Arizona Coyotes in the District on Friday night in their October finale. John Carlson's power-play goal in the third period broke a 0-0 tie and held up as the game-winner, supporting Ilya Samsonov's 16-save efforts in the Washington crease.
"I like the way that the opening month went, and now we've got to go do some work on the road," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "The first two road trips were okay, but it's a new month and you've got to keep pushing on here. It is going to be tougher for sure with the back-to-backs, and the travel. There are different things that we're managing here; the amount of games, the quantity. But we seemed to handle it okay last year."
Peter Laviolette | October 31
They did. Washington was 19-7-2 on the road last season, tied with the Edmonton Oilers for the best road record in the NHL. This season, the Caps opened with a three-game homestand and they played six of their first eight games on home ice. Washington split those games (3-0-3) while winning each of two one-game road trips, to New Jersey and Ottawa, respectively.
Since the start of the 2014-15 season, the Caps own the best road record in the NHL, and no other team is really close to them. Washington is 159-82-28 on the road in its last 269 regular season games, for a points pct. of .643. St. Louis (146-89-34) is second over the same span for a points pct. of .606. The Caps, the Blues and the Lightning (.604) are the only three teams with a road points pct. of .600 or better over those last seven plus seasons.
"Historically, I feel like we've always been a little bit better on the road," says Caps center Lars Eller. "I always like playing at home, and we had a good start at home, with points in every game. And it's just crucial to get off to a good start, especially in the first 20 games.
"In November, we're going to have some back-to-backs in there. But there are also a couple of times where we have two days in between [games], which is good, because when we do have that we have some time to recover in between. I'm excited about the upcoming month."
From Nov. 11-21, the Caps will play seven games in 11 nights, with six of the seven on the road and with all six road contests forming three sets of back-to-back games during that stretch.
"I think that we've been good enough to get all of the points, so the three that got away is disappointing," says Laviolette. "But saying that, we've done good things. I think we've played well enough where we could have taken those three and won them in regulation. And then I look at the games - especially inside of those three games - and I think that there's pockets in the game where we could played better, or we could have done something better, where maybe we took our foot off the pedal and didn't get it done.
"You always want to get off to a good start at the start of the season. You can't make the playoffs in October, but you can eliminate yourself from the playoffs in October. And so to get the points and get off the mark the way we did is a real positive. The way we played for the majority of the month, there's been a lot of positives."
The Caps will start November with a pair of tough tilts in Florida; they'll head across the state to face the Panthers on Thursday.
"They're good," says Laviolette of the Lightning. "We already played them once. I watched Florida [on Saturday against Boston], and they seem to be good too. And so we're going to have to play good hockey. That's the bottom line. We're going to have to do the right things, we're going to have to skate and compete like crazy."
Washington faced the Lightning at home just over two weeks ago, on Oct. 16. Tampa Bay prevailed in overtime in that one, skating away with a 2-1 win on Steven Stamkos' game-winner in the final ticks of overtime.
In the immediate aftermath of their victory in Washington in the middle of last month, the Bolts dropped three straight games (0-2-1) before putting together consecutive 5-1 victories at Pittsburgh and at home against Arizona, respectively.
Monday's game against Washington is the only contest the Lightning will play in a seven-day stretch; its win over Arizona came last Thursday and its next game after the Caps leave town is Thursday against the Leafs in Toronto.
