March 22 vs. Florida Panthers at Capital One Arena
Time: 5:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Florida Panthers (42-24-3)
Washington Capitals (46-15-8)
Washington finishes up its final multi-game homestand of 2024-25 on Saturday afternoon when it faces the Florida Panthers at Capital One Arena. Saturday’s game finishes up the season series between the two former Southeast Division rivals, with the Caps aiming to sweep both the homestand and the three-game set with the Panthers.
With a 3-2 victory over Philadelphia in the middle match of the homestand, the Caps became the first NHL team to clinch a playoff berth this season. Some 11 months ago, they were the last of the 16 teams to punch their ticket for the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring.
The League’s data on clinching playoff berths dates back only to 1979-80, but since that time, the Caps are the first NHL team to go from being the last to clinch a berth to the first to do so in the following season.
With Thursday’s win, the Caps also reached the 100-point plateau for the ninth time in the League’s last 13 seasons of 82 games. Over that span, only the Boston Bruins (10) have recorded more 100-point seasons than the Capitals; Pittsburgh also has nine. The Caps were on pace for 100-point seasons in each of the abbreviated seasons of 2019-20 and 2020-21.
As they prepare to take on the Panthers in the homestand finale, the Caps have won eight of their last nine games and they've won each of their last five home games.
Alex Ovechkin scored the first goal of Thursday’s game against the Flyers, pushing his career total to 888 and leaving him half a dozen goals south of matching Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL career mark of 894. Including Saturday’s game with the Panthers, the Caps have 13 games remaining this season. Gretzky has held the League standard for nearly 31 years now; he surpassed Gordie Howe (801) for the top spot on the career goals list on March 23, 1994.
With their playoff berth clinched and with comfortable leads in both the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference standings, the focus figures to fall even more squarely on Ovechkin’s pursuit of the League’s all-time goals record between now and whenever he nets No. 895. He needs seven more to get there; for some perspective, he scored No. 881 – seven goals “ago” – on Feb. 23 as the middle goal in a hat trick against Edmonton, a dozen games earlier.
Ovechkin started the season with a three-game goal drought, and he had another in early January. Those are his longest dry spells of the season, he has been remarkably consistent, especially considering he is 39 years old and in his 20th NHL season.
In the history of the NHL, there have been 116 instances of a player aged 39 or older playing at least 40 games in an NHL season. Ovechkin has scored 35 goals in 53 games this season, a rate of .66 goals per game. That rate places him first on the list, and Gordie Howe’s 1968-69 season is second; Howe scored 44 goals in 76 games at the age of 40, an impressive rate of .58 goals per game.
If you imagine the list of 116 players, with Ovechkin first and Howe second, the distance of .08 between Ovechkin and Howe is greater than the distance between any other two players on that lengthy list.
And Ovechkin’s incredible season has come during one of the most special and feelgood seasons of his two-decade career, another extremely high bar.
“I think there are tons of positives to it,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of the ongoing chase, which grows in intensity with every red lamp Ovechkin lights. “But our guys feed off it on the bench, pulling for him. I think it energizes them to play at a higher level, to be honest with you, to raise their game, and when they’re playing with him, to try to have productive shifts.
“And we’ve talked about it as a group; you just have to be careful forcing pucks to him and overpassing in situations and just play your game. And if you play within our structure, good things will happen for him. So worry about playing inside of our system, and good things will happen for him.
“But there is no question as a coach I feel like this chase and the energy around it hasn’t been a distraction or a hindrance to our group. It’s been a massive benefit.”
Since the NHL’s pause for the 4 Nations Face-Off, the Caps are 10-4-0, the sixth-best point percentage (.714) in the League. With an average of 3.86 goals per game across that stretch, the Caps rank second only to surprising St. Louis (3.93).
In the final game of their homestand, the Caps will face a Florida team that’s been the NHL’s stingiest of late, allowing just 1.58 goals per game while posting an 8-4-0 record.
For the Panthers, Saturday’s game is the last stop before home. Florida finishes a six-game road trip here, a journey that began on March 11, the same night the Caps opened their weeklong California trip in Anaheim. The Cats are 2-3-0 on the trip to date. Most recently, they eked out a 1-0 overtime win on a Sasha Barkov goal and Sergei Bobrovsky shutout in Columbus on Thursday,
Florida comes into Saturday’s game tied for the top spot in the Atlantic Division standings with 87 points; Tampa Bay is just two points back of the Panthers and Maple Leafs. All three of those teams have suddenly slipped behind the second-place team in the Metropolitan Division, Carolina (88). Although the Canes are a dozen points behind the Caps for the top spot in the Metro, they’ve won eight straight games to surpass the Atlantic pack.
The last time the Caps completed a full sweep of a season series of at least three games from Florida was in the lockout-abbreviated season of 2012-13 when they took all four meetings, outscoring the Panthers by a combined 22-9 in the process. Entering this season, the Caps were 1-5-3 in their previous nine meetings with Florida, across the prior three seasons.
