Black Friday – The Caps host the New York Islanders this afternoon at Capital One Arena in what is the Isles’ lone visit to the District this season. The Caps will visit Long Island twice in the back half of the season, but the Islanders and the New York Rangers are the two Metropolitan Division teams Washington faces just three times – instead of the typical four – in 2024-25. The Caps will visit Manhattan only once this season to face the Rangers.
The Isles are missing a few key contributors – forwards Mat Barzal and Anthony Duclair and defensemen Adam Pelech and Mike Reilly – and they’ve found it difficult to gain any traction in the standings over the first quarter of the 2024-25 season. New York has yet to string together more than two consecutive victories, and it has managed that modest achievement only once.
Although the Isles’ power play has been scuffling (1-for-20 in their last 10 games) and New York ranks near the bottom of the NHL’s goal scoring ledger, Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery cautions against taking the Isles too lightly.
“There's the usual suspects,” begins Carbery, “and they make it really hard at your net front. So you're going to have to deal with Anders Lee and [Brock] Nelson. [Defenseman Noah] Dobson will get up in the rush, and he's good at the offensive blue line. So those are the individual things.
“As a team, the thing that jumps out to me is … they're actually creating a lot of quality scoring chances; they're 10th in the league by our numbers in creating Grade A chances. And although they're not finishing at that rate, you always just have to be careful, because in goals for, they're near the bottom of the league. But in what they're creating, they're right up there in the top 10.
“So to me, that's a tricky situation as a team. Eventually, that's going to break; eventually they're going to start finishing on those chances, and you do not want it to be today. So we’ve got to make sure that we're staying tight, and we're not giving up as many opportunities as they've been generating.”
Washington is 3-2-1 in its last half dozen home games against the Islanders, and the Caps have only managed to score a dozen goals in those contests.
Heartaches And Hangovers – Washington’s 5-4 win in Tampa on Wednesday to close out the Mentors’ Trip on a high note was a remarkable rollercoaster ride of a hockey game. When it was over, the Caps and their mentors didn’t get back to DC until well after 2 am on Thanksgiving Day, and they’ll only be in town for a bit more than 36 hours before they depart once again.
As exhilarating as that win was, the Caps have had a long flight home, a holiday with family and friends, and they’ve also had to pack for their next road trip, which takes place later this evening. With a 3 pm start today, there was no morning skate. The Caps will be taking the ice for the first time since they left the sheet at Tampa’s Amalie Arena on Wednesday night.
“I would say that the carryover from the Tampa game would be as good as gone,” says Carbery. “And I would say it's more about us with taking the day [off on Thursday], getting home late, Thanksgiving, and then the odd start today without the morning skate and guys coming to the rink, I think it's more about today and making sure that we're getting back up to the levels physically, mentally, that we need to get to in order to have success on home ice.”
When they visit New Jersey on Saturday night to finish this set of back-to-backs, the Caps will be trying to match the franchise record (seven) for consecutive road victories. But success on home ice has been hard to come by for Washington lately.
Since they lit up Columbus by a 7-2 count in their first home game of November, the Caps have scored only 11 goals in five home games (1-3-1) since. Washington had a seven-game home winning streak earlier this season, but it carries a four-game home losing streak (0-3-1) into today’s game.
As they enter today’s game against New York, the Capitals have scored just five goals at 5-on-5 in the four games since team captain Alex Ovechkin was lost because of a fractured fibula.
Start Me Up – Washington is in the midst of a treacherous stretch of scheduling in which it must travel for a dozen straight games. That patch of the schedule started on Monday in Florida with the beginning of the Mentors’ Trip, so the Caps are off on the good foot as far as those dozen games are concerned.
Last season, the Caps faced a similar stretch that began a bit later in the season. Washington went a respectable 5-4-3 during those dozen games from Dec. 10, 2023 to Jan. 3, 2024, but the rugged stretch may have taken a toll after the fact; the Caps went 4-8-1 immediately after those dozen games and they didn’t get “right” again until mid-February.
In The Nets – Logan Thompson gets the start in net this afternoon for Washington. Thompson has won nine of his first 11 starts (9-1-1) in his first season with the Capitals. In his seven November starts, Thompson is 5-1-1 with a 1.99 GAA and a .936 save pct.
Among all NHL goaltenders with eight or more appearances this season, Thompson’s 9.0 goals saved above expected ranks fifth in the circuit, according to moneypuck.com. Lifetime against the Islanders, he is 1-1-1 in three appearances (all starts) with a 2.30 GAA and a .923 save pct.
For the Islanders, today’s starter is former Caps netminder Semyon Varlamov. In two dozen career appearances – all starts – against the team that drafted him in 2006, Varlamov is 8-12-4 with three shutouts, a 2.55 GAA and a .921 save pct.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we believe the Capitals and the Islanders might look when they take the ice on Friday afternoon in the District:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
21-Protas, 17-Strome, 16-Raddysh
24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
29-Lapierre, 20-Eller, 88-Mangiapane
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 63-Miroshnichenko
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
38-Sandin, 3-Roy
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Extras
13-Vrana
27-Alexeyev
52-McIlrath
Out/Injured
8-Ovechkin (fractured fibula)
15-Milano (upper body)
19-Backstrom (hip)
77-Oshie (back)
NEW YORK
Forwards
27-Lee, 14-Horvat, 44-Pageau
7-Tsyplakov, 29-Nelson, 21-Palmieri
18-Engvall, 53-Cizikas, 10-Holmstrom
20-Fasching, 32-MacLean, 26-Wahlstrom
Defensemen
28-Romanov, 8-Dobson
36-George, 6-Pulock
25-Cholowski, 24-Mayfield
Goaltenders
40-Varlamov
30-Sorokin
Extras
17-Martin
34-Hutton
Out/Injured
2-Reilly (upper body)
3-Pelech (upper body)
11-Duclair (lower body)
13-Barzal (upper body)
