Almost There – Caps captain Alex Ovechkin shed his powder blue non-contact sweater for Friday’s morning skate, but Caps coach Spencer Carbery announced that Ovechkin will not be suiting up for any of these three games between now and the NHL’s annual holiday hiatus next week.
Given the way Washington’s schedule shakes out, the team’s approach with its 39-year-old captain makes sense. Beginning with tonight’s home game against Carolina, the Caps will play three games in four nights. Then they’ll have four nights off, and then they’ll have three games in four nights again to close out calendar 2024.
“He’s been cleared for contact, so he can resume regular activities with the main group,” says Carbery. “But we won’t see him before the break, so the target will become sometime after the [holiday] break, whether it’s that first game [or not], but we won’t see him for these next three.”
Ovechkin has missed almost five weeks of action now, so dropping him back into the lineup for a set of back-to-back games (Sunday vs. Los Angeles and Monday in Boston) when the team will be idling for the next four days doesn’t seem like the most viable of plans.
“Just with the timing of everything and the next three games and what that looks like,” says Carbery, “for him to get these days [this weekend] plus the break [given] where he is at medically, that’s the best decision for him.”
Washington’s first game after the break is on the road against the Maple Leafs. If Ovechkin does return for the Dec. 28 game in Toronto, he will have missed 16 games, easily his longest continuous absence from the Washington lineup in his 20-season NHL career. When Ovechkin went down with the injury in Utah on Nov. 18, the team owned a 26-29-4 record without him in the lineup. Thus far during his current absence, the Caps have played to an 8-4-1, lifting their overall mark without The Great Eight to 34-33-5.
The Caps will also be without Lars Eller (illness) for tonight’s game against Carolina. Washington placed Eller on injured reserve retroactive to this past Tuesday, so Eller will also miss the three games this weekend, but he will be eligible to return and play on Dec. 28 in Toronto.
Keep Pushin’ – Given the nature of these last dozen days of 2024 in which Washington will twice play three games in four nights sandwiched around a four-day break, the immediate focus is obviously on the Hurricanes tonight.
“We know the opponent real well,” says Carbery. “We've seen them earlier this season [Nov. 3] on a back-to-back in their building, which is always a handful. But the guys know – as we describe to them – it's one of the easier teams in the league to pre-scout, because you know exactly what you're going to get every single time you play the Carolina Hurricanes. You know exactly what their blueprint looks like, every one of their systems.”
The Caps and Canes split four meetings last season, but each of Washington’s two wins was achieved in the shootout, so Carolina collected six points to four for the Capitals in those contests.
In four of the last five meetings between the Caps and the Hurricanes, one team or the other has been playing for the second time in as many days/night. But tonight’s Caps-Canes battle pits a pair of teams that haven’t played since Tuesday, a real luxury for both of these Metro Division rivals.
“It should be good,” says ex-Canes defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk of tonight’s game. “I agree; it feels like either they’re coming into us on a back-to-back or we are going into them on a back-to-back. So it will be nice to have both teams rested up.
“Obviously we know how they play, and they know how we play; there’s not much unfamiliarity there. It’s going to come down to who can impose their will more, who can execute better and that will usually leave you in a good spot. They play a tough style to play against, and if you’re not executing well, it feels like you get stuck in your end a lot. So if you can execute well and do the simple things right, it should lead to success.”
Carolina prevailed 4-2 in the only previous meeting between the two teams this season, on Nov. 3 in Raleigh. After that loss, Washington reeled off a franchise record 10 straight road wins before falling in Dallas and Chicago, respectively, earlier this week.
The Hurricanes are a hard-forechecking, shot volume team that places a premium on special teams.
“It's just whether we can handle that,” says Carbery, “and work our way through that and get to our game, and that's going to be our challenge tonight, handling their pressure all over the ice. It's the same every single time; it does not change. And you know that from a competitiveness standpoint, and [being] heavy on pucks, and harder at the net fronts, and in corner battles and forechecks, all of that stuff just goes right to the top of the list when you're playing the Carolina Hurricanes.”
That’s all true, every word. But the Caps also must be mindful of not looking too far past these three games at that four-day break replete with holiday food, drink and festivities, and the many family members who’ve already arrived in the area for the holiday season.
“It obviously feels like it’s jam-packed before they give you a break,” says van Riemsdyk. “And then coming out of the break, it’s usually pretty busy. It’s obviously much nicer to get into a rhythm of playing every other day; that usually comes probably after the new year.
“But now is an important time to use these days to recover over the holidays, and to try to limit – as much as you can – the booze and the bad eating. There is obviously going to be some of that when you have a chance to celebrate with family, and you should do that. You should also decompress and come back ready to go.”
That schedule rhythm van Riemsdyk mentions is also in the offing. Thirteen of Washington’s first 31 games (42 percent) were played with one day between games. From here on out, 33 of the team’s last 51 games (65 percent) will be played with one day between games, the wheelhouse of rhythm for most NHL clubs. The Caps are 10-3-0 when playing with one day between games this season.
“We know we’ve got to stay dialed in and focused, especially [because] we’ve got real good teams coming in and we go to Boston right before the break,” says Caps forward Aliaksei Protas. “It’s going to be really tough games, tough battles. And I think we are ready for that; we are ready for this test.
“It’s going to be fun, especially for everybody’s families who are coming. This is a great time of year, and you want to make them happy, too. So we’ll do our best, we’ll play our game, and we’ll see how it all plays out.”
Once the holidays are in the rear view, the midway point of the season is right behind them, and the most important games of the campaign are soon to follow.
“After Christmas, it feels like it really ramps up,” notes van Riemsdyk. “There are a lot of more important games where you can see the impact a game can potentially have on the standings. It’s going to be a fun push. We’ve obviously set ourselves up in a nice spot in the second half with how well we’ve played in the first half, but we’ve got a lot more work to do.”
"For our guys," says Carbery, "it's just staying in the moment and not getting complacent, and knowing that it's a long year and you're going to have ups and downs, but you've got to keep pushing. And that's the message, especially before the break, because I feel like this is where guys really start to think, families start to trickle into town, and you start to think about the three days off – 'Wow, that's going to be really nice.'
"It's been a grind – the first 34 games – and you let your mind drift. And it's the teams that can really stay on task, and stay in the moment for these last four or five days, while there's a lot of things going on externally and in your mind, those are the teams that can finish out the pre-holiday break playing well. And that's what we want to do."
Home, Home Again – Tonight’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes marks the Caps’ 12th contest in a span of 26 days, and because Washington’s next game is also a home game – Sunday against Los Angeles – the game against Carolina also ends a stretch in which the Capitals have had to travel for each of a dozen straight contests.
Last season, the Caps had a similar stretch of a dozen games, and they went 5-4-3. This year’s model has managed an impressive 8-2-1 mark as it heads into the final game of the stretch tonight.
After two early-season homestands of three games in length, Washington has had just three home games in the last 25 days, all of them stand alone single games. The Capitals’ longest homestand of the season is five games from Feb. 23-March 3.
In The Nets – Charlie Lindgren is between the pipes tonight for the Capitals, facing the Canes two days after his 31st birthday. Over the course of his career, Lindgren has posted his best numbers in his birth month of December. Career wise, he has recorded nearly a third of his 62 career wins in December, going 18-5-3 with a shutout, a 1.91 GAA and a .933 save pct. in 28 appearances.
“It’s my birthday month!” exclaims Lindgren, when asked about his December success. “I can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind. For whatever reason – it could be just happenstance – but certainly now we are definitely in winter, and it’s definitely that hockey time of year where it’s cold outside and all you want to do is be on the ice. But there’s a lot of different reasons; obviously you can’t win games alone, and I’ve got a really good team supporting me and a really good group of guys. But I like to play hockey in December.”
Lifetime against Carolina, Lindgren is 3-2-0 with a 2.74 GAA and a .918 save pct. in five appearances (four starts).
Coming off a 32-save shutout win over the Islanders on Tuesday, Pyotr Kochetkov gets the net again for the Canes tonight. Although he has yet to reach the 100-game mark for his NHL career, Kochetkov has already recorded nine shutouts and 51 wins in 88 appearances; he ranks seventh on the franchise’s all-time shutout list and is eighth all-time in wins by Hartford/Carolina netminders.
Lifetime against the Capitals, Kochetkov is 3-0-2 in five appearances – all starts – with a 2.52 GAA and an .870 save pct.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we believe the Caps and the Hurricanes might look when they take to the ice on Friday night in the District:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
88-Mangiapane, 17-Strome, 43-Wilson
24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 21-Protas
13-Vrana, 29-Lapierre, 16-Raddysh
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 63-Miroshnichenko
Defensemen
38-Sandin, 74-Carlson
42-Fehervary, 3-Roy
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
48-Thompson
Extras
27-Alexeyev
52-McIlrath
Out/Injured
8-Ovechkin (fractured fibula)
15-Milano (upper body)
19-Backstrom (hip)
20-Eller (illness)
77-Oshie (back)
CAROLINA
Forwards
50-Robinson, 20-Aho, 24-Jarvis
37-Svechnikov, 82-Kotkaniemi, 88-Necas
28-Carrier, 11-Staal, 48-Martinook
96-Roslovic, 27-Yost, 53-Blake
Defensemen
74-Slavin, 8-Burns
7-Orlov, 5-Chatfield
41-Gostisbehere, 26-Walker
Goaltenders
52-Kochetkov
34-Tokarski
Extras
61-Stillman
Out/Injured
18-Drury (hand
31-Andersen (knee)
71-Fast (neck)
