Caps Visit Bolts
Caps conclude set of back-to-backs, March slate on Thursday in Tampa
The Caps conclude a set of back-to-back games on Thursday night when they travel to Tampa to take on the Lightning in the finale of the season's series between the two former Southeast Division rivals. The Caps and the Bolts split a one-sided pair of home-and-home games early on in the 2022-23 season, with Washington winning by a 5-1 count in the District on Nov. 11 and the Lightning taking the rematch by a 6-3 score two nights later in Tampa.
On Wednesday night in Washington, the Caps absorbed a 2-1 shootout setback at the hands of the New York Islanders in the front end of the set of back-to-backs. With time slipping away on the 2022-23 season and just seven games remaining for the Caps, they have dipped down to 12th place in the Eastern Conference standings, five points south of Pittsburgh for the second and final wild card playoff berth. Pittsburgh also holds a game in hand on Washington.
"We've got to win a game," says Caps' coach Peter Laviolette. "We're going down there [to Tampa] to win a hockey game. We'll have to get over this one, get down there and get ready for that game."
Thursday's game in Tampa is the Caps' last game in the month of March; they're even at 5-5-3 to this point in the month. Washington has six games in April, and it will conclude the campaign on April 13 with a home game against New Jersey.
"We know how it looks," says Caps' defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk. "We can do the math, and we know where we stand. We know it's going to take a heck of an April here. We've done it before; we had a heck of a December where we strung some [wins] together. We're healthy right now and we've got everyone back, so there's no reason why we can't do that again.
"We're going to focus on what we can control and win the games in front of us. And if that's enough, and we hope it is, but that's all we can control."
The Caps sandwiched a pair of five-game winning streaks around a 2-1 loss to Dallas in mid-December, posting a record of 11-2-2 in the final month of calendar 2022. While the Caps posted a 22-13-6 record through the first half of the '22-23 season to put them squarely on a 100-point pace for the season, they've been unable to win more than two consecutive games for more than three months now, and they've managed to win consecutive contests just twice over that same span.
Washington has been consistently inconsistent in the second half. After posting a .610 points percentage - 12th best in the League - in the season's first half, the Caps have dipped to just .414 since, going 13-19-3 in the second half to rank 30th in the circuit over that span, ahead of only Columbus (.392) and San Jose (.343).
On Wednesday night in Washington, the Caps surpassed the 400 man-games lost plateau for the season, easily the highest figure the team has logged since it began officially tracking those numbers and including them in the club's media guide in 2012-13. The previous high over that span was the 288 man-games lost by last season's Caps, the 2021-22 edition.
Washington has reached the point where even running the table the rest of the way is not likely to result in a ninth straight berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Caps were the eighth seeded second wild card team from the Eastern Conference with 100 points a year ago, the most ever for an eighth seed. This season's eighth seeded club is a mathematical certainty to come in under the century mark, but Washington's top end is now just 91 points. No Eastern Conference club has reached the playoffs with 91 or fewer points in more than a decade.
Seeking a fourth straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final, Tampa Bay is firmly set in third place in the Atlantic Division standings and it is virtually locked into a first-round date with the second-place Toronto Maple Leafs.
With the second-best home ice record (25-7-5) in the NHL this season, the Lightning would love to have home ice in that series. But the Bolts currently trail Toronto by six points, and the Leafs hold a game in hand. The two teams have one meeting remaining this season, an April 11 date in Tampa.
The Lightning enters Thursday's game on the heels of a 4-0 win over the Hurricanes in Carolina on Tuesday. That victory salvaged a previously empty-handed four-game road trip, and it also halted a four-game slide (0-4-0) for the Bolts, who were unable to muster more than two goals in any of those four losses.
Since defeating the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche 4-3 in a shootout in Denver on Valentine's Day, the Lightning has won only eight of its last 22 contests (8-10-4). They've played a lot of hockey these last three seasons, but the Bolts also certainly know how to pace themselves for what's ahead.
The Bolts went all in on reaching the Final again in June, dealing away a gaggle of future assets to land winger Tanner Jeannot from the Nashville Predators. With the Preds last season - his first full season in the League - Jeannot racked up 24 goals and 41 points while finishing third in the League with 130 PIM. This season, he is again third in the NHL in PIM, but Jeannot has dipped to five goals and 17 points in 72 games.
Jeannot doesn't have to score to help, especially come playoff time. And with the likes of Pat Maroon and Corey Perry already manning the wings in Tampa, the Lightning will have a high degree of agitation and irascibility available to them as they vie for a fourth straight berth in the Final. In Jeannot and Maroon, the Bolts feature two of the League's top three in PIM for each of the last two seasons.
