March 28 vs. Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (36-26-9)
Toronto Maple Leafs (40-22-9)
Following a successful four-game homestand, the Caps take to the road once again, traveling to Toronto for a Thursday night date with the Leafs. Thursday’s game marks Washington’s lone visit to Toronto this season; it’s been 14 months since their last visit here. The Caps dropped a 5-1 decision here on Jan. 29, 2023.
Washington comes into Thursday’s game with six wins in its last seven, and its lone loss during that span came at the hands of the Leafs in the District just over a week ago. Toronto visited Washington last Wednesday, handing the Caps a 7-3 defeat in the opener of a critical four-game homestand. The Capitals then rebounded to defeat Carolina 7-6 in a shootout on Friday, they downed the Winnipeg Jets 3-0 on Sunday, and they finished with a flourish on Tuesday, dispatching Detroit 4-3 on Dylan Strome’s overtime goal, his second goal of the game.
With 25 goals on the season, Strome has established a single-season career best. He has exceeded last season’s standard of 23 goals, and with 60 points (25 goals, 35 assists) he is five points shy of matching his single-season best in that department as well; he had 65 points last season. Strome is also pulling down an average of 17:42 per night in ice time, also a single-season high, and a full minute per night over his ice time average from last season, his first in a Caps’ sweater. In two of the last three games of the homestand – including Tuesday’s finale against Detroit – Strome logged more than 22 minutes in ice time.
“Phenomenal,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery of Strome’s performance. “I’m so proud of him, because he is such a gamer. He wants to win so badly, and you can feel it when you talk to him; you feel it on the bench. It’s not about him; it’s not about his own individual stats – goals, assists – he wants to score so badly because he wants to win.
“When he delivers in these types of games where there is so much at stake and we’re at this point in the year, you can just feel it, how proud he is that he’s the one that’s scoring the big goal, that’s carrying us to victory. And that puts a smile on my face, because I know how bad he wants it. I’m really proud of the way he’s playing right now.”
Now in his eighth NHL season, Strome’s only prior playoff experience was a nine-game run with Chicago in the “bubble” playoffs of 2020 when the League expanded the field to include a handful of teams that would not have otherwise been in the playoffs. But he is itching for his first “real” playoff experience, which might help explain his March offensive output, which is easily the best of any month of his career. He now has 74 points (25 goals, 49 assists) in 73 games in the month of March for his career.
“I think he’s been one of our best players,” says Caps’ center Nic Dowd of Strome. “I think that says it all. I think if you’re going to come and play, and be consistent nightly, and be counted on to be offensive, and you’re producing and you’re doing a good job at it, I think that speaks to how much he cares about the situation that we’re in.”
In Tuesday’s win, the Caps iced a lineup of four mostly youthful centers, each of whom has fewer than 500 games worth of NHL experience. The Wings dressed a quartet of pivots that combined for 1,964 career NHL games, nearly double Washington’s total of 1,103. The Caps’ middle men were drubbed in the circle on Tuesday, but they won a few key draws at critical points of the game, and three of them – Strome, Dowd and Connor McMichael – combined to score all four Washington goals. Hendrix Lapierre, the one center who didn’t light the lamp for the Caps in Tuesday’s win, sparked the game-winner in overtime and picked up an assist on the play. Lapierre’s speed was a noticeable asset to the Caps’ overtime tool box, one they lacked earlier in the season.
“He’s a great skater,” says Strome of Lapierre. “He’s getting a lot of minutes, and he’s been great since he’s been called up. Obviously when you have guys being injured and suspended, you need guys like him to step up, and he really has. Him and [McMichael] have been awesome, Mikes for the whole year and Lappy since he’s been called up.
“We’ll take the win and move on to Toronto. It’d be nice to get two points there, and keep this thing going.”
“I don’t consider Stromer [who just turned 27] that young,” says Dowd. “I think Mikey and Lappy; you can call them young guys. Stromer has been around quite a bit, and he has played really big minutes in big situations for us. But Mikey and Lappy, we’ve had guys who were thrust into situations all year for different reasons, and they’ve how to play in big time situations, and we need them. And I think you’re starting to see it pay off.”
The six wins in seven games puts the Caps in a good position as they head into the season’s final three weeks, but they’re in no position to let up. They know they’ve still got some heavy lifting ahead, and they’ll need to bank several more wins in order to keep playing beyond April 16 when they conclude the regular season against the Flyers in Philadelphia.
“Every game feels like a playoff game at this point,” says Dowd. “This is our playoffs right now. [Tuesday’s win] was big I think because they are so close to us in the standings, yes. But the next game is going to feel the exact same way.”
Rest has become more of a weapon for the Caps with their ultra-condensed late season schedule. A week ago, a day after falling to the Leafs in the homestand opener, the Caps scrapped a scheduled practice on team picture day. On Wednesday ahead of their flight to Toronto, the Caps again killed a scheduled practice. Thursday’s game is Washington’s 12th in a span of 22 days, and they will play their last 10 games over an 18-day span.
Toronto sits in third place in the Atlantic Division, and its playoff positioning is all but assured. But the Tampa Bay Lightning – current occupants of the first wild card slot in the Eastern Conference standings – is 9-2-2 in its last 13 games, and it has pulled to within four points of the Leafs. Both the Bolts and the Leafs have 10 games remaining, and they still face one another twice, in Toronto on April 3 and in Tampa two weeks later in the April 17 season’s finale for both squads.
Since defeating the Caps in D.C. last week, the Leafs doubled up the Oilers 6-3 in Toronto, and dropped a 2-1 decision to the Hurricanes in Raleigh in the second of back-to-backs. Most recently – on Tuesday night in Toronto in the opener of a two-game homestand – the Leafs fell to New Jersey, 6-3.
In the loss to the Devils, the Leafs played without five veteran defensemen who combine for more than 3,700 career games played. Toronto was without Mark Giordano (1,140 games), Morgan Rielly (784), Jake Muzzin (683), John Klingberg (633), and Joel Edmundson (528).
