November 6 vs. Nashville Predators at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Caps Radio 24/7
Nashville Predators (4-7-1)
Washington Capitals (8-3-0)
Home has been a happy place for the Capitals in the early going of the 2024-25 NHL season. The Caps have won six straight games at Capital One Arena, their longest home winning streak in more than six years. On Wednesday night in Washington, the Caps will put that streak on the line when they open up a two-game homestand against the Nashville Predators.
The Caps’ most recent outing was a road game in Carolina late this past Sunday afternoon. The Caps briefly led by a 2-1 count in that game, but the end result was a 4-2 setback, just the third suffered by Washington in 11 games this season. Although Sunday’s game wasn’t one of the Caps’ best performances of the season, they were within a goal of the Canes for most of the game’s final 35 minutes; they just weren’t able to break the Carolina swarm consistently or often enough to muster an equalizer.
Washington has been able to stack up multiple wins in the wake of each of its first two losses of the 2024-25 campaign, and it will be seeking to do so again on Wednesday. The Caps will also be aiming to match the seven-game home winning streak they cobbled together in the homestretch of the 2017-18 season (from Feb. 24-March 28, 2018), which ultimately concluded with them winning the ultimate prize, the Stanley Cup.
Caps’ captain Alex Ovechkin scored Washington’s first goal in Sunday’s game, a 5-on-3 power-play marker that evened the score at 1-1 in the final minute of the first period. For Ovechkin, that goal was No. 860 of his NHL career, and his seventh of the young season. The goal also continued Ovechkin’s recent heater; he has scored in four consecutive games and has five goals over that span.
The Capitals have looked much different – and much better – out of the starting gates this season, and that definitely goes for Ovechkin, too. On Monday afternoon, the Caps’ 39-year-old captain was named the NHL’s No. 1 star for the week ending Nov. 3.
“Overall, our line has played better because we know the system,” says Ovechkin. “Because last year, [coach Spencer Carbery] came and it was a different system, and we have to figure out how we have to play. And right you can see that we know the system; everybody knows what we have to do exactly.”
In 2023-24, Ovechkin started slowly; he didn’t score his seventh goal of the season until his 34th game, a Dec. 30, 2023 home game against Nashville. But he supplied a strong finishing kick to help the Capitals’ late season surge toward a playoff berth, scoring 23 times in his last 36 games. Including his hot start in 2024-25, Ovechkin has scored 30 goals in his last 47 regular season games, putting him 35 goals shy of breaking Wayne Gretzky’s hallowed all-time mark of 894 career goals.
This season, Ovechkin has looked sharper earlier, but so have his linemates and his teammates, as well as the team as a whole. He is off to his best start since 2021-22 when he needed only six games with which to light the lamp seven times. After 11 games in ’21-22, Ovechkin had 10 goals. He finished with 50 on the nose – the most recent of his nine career seasons with 50 or more goals – in 77 games that season.
“It’s been nice to see a few go in, but his line has been a productive line all year long, if you look at the underlying numbers and you watch the shifts,” says Carbery of Ovechkin. “Sometimes he was running a little bit cold, like where pucks were not going in for him, like early on, but their line was still really effective.
“And sometimes, as a goal scorer, he gets a little impatient. And he’s like, ‘Why? What’s going on?’ And [we say], ‘Just relax. The process looks good. The film looks good. You’re getting in good spots, you’re spending more time in the offensive zone, your line is productive. You’re generating 10 scoring chances and only giving up four; that’s a good night, just stick with it.’
“And I feel like because the process has been good for his line and all of a sudden, he gets a few to go in, and for a goal scorer, now he’s feeling it.”
Ovechkin is in his 20th NHL season now, and we can all see what happens when he’s “feeling it.”
“He just finds a way to get open,” says Caps’ center Dylan Strome, who has been on a heater of his own since opening night. “He obviously has a great shot; I try to pass to him as much as I can.
“It’s fun to play with him. He’s got [almost] 1,600 points for a reason. He knows how to score, he knows how to make plays, and it’s an honor to be on his line.”
Following on off day on Monday, the Caps reconvened on Tuesday at MedStar Capitals Iceplex for a practice session in preparation for Wednesday’s meeting with the Predators. The Caps got some good news on Tuesday when defenseman Matt Roy was able to suit up in a regular sweater and participate in a full practice session. Roy, signed as an unrestricted free agent over the summer, suffered a lower body injury early in the second period of Washington’s opening night contest on Oct. 12 against New Jersey, and he has been sidelined for each of the Caps’ 10 previous games.
“He is definitely a possibility for [Wednesday],” says Carbery. “He looked good, he has continued to progress and today was another box checked – being in a regular practice and a regular jersey – so all things trending towards potentially playing [Wednesday].”
Washington defenseman Jakob Chychrun has missed the team’s last three games with an upper body injury suffered early in an Oct. 29 game against the Rangers. Chychrun did not practice with his teammates on Tuesday, but he did skate prior to Tuesday’s practice.
“He skated this morning for a solid 45 [minutes] I think with [assistant coach] Kenny [McCudden],” says Carbery. “And so he is also progressing, not to the point where he is in practice quite yet, but moving along.”
Like the Capitals, Nashville shook off a tough start last season, putting on a strong late-season surge to nail down a playoff berth. Also like the Caps, the Preds brought in a number of new faces over the offseason. But that’s where the similarities end; Nashville’s new blood hasn’t found its way as of yet, and the Preds are Central Division basement dwellers going into Tuesday night’s slate of NHL activity.
The Preds opened with five straight losses (0-5-0), and they shook off that rugged start with a 4-1-1 stretch immediately afterwards. But playing at home on Monday night against Los Angeles, the Preds turned in another klunker; they managed only 16 shots on net in a 3-0 loss to Darcy Kuemper and the Kings.
Down 2-0 heading into the third period, the Preds weren’t able to test Kuemper until the last four minutes of the final frame, and a late empty-net goal sealed their fate. While Washington ranks second in the League with 34 goals at 5-on-5, the Preds are last in the circuit in that category, with just a dozen goals at 5-on-5 in as many games.
