And with how tight the Metropolitan Division standings are, the Capitals need to accumulate as many points as possible.
Currently, the Capitals occupy first place in the Metropolitan, but the Pittsburgh Penguins (87 points), Columbus Blue Jackets (87 points) Philadelphia Flyers (86 points) and even the New Jersey Devils (82 points) are all within striking distance.
After the Caps dropped a 6-3 decision to the Flyers last Sunday, a miffed Jay Beagle spoke out to NHL.com.
"We have to start playing playoff hockey," the veteran forward said. "You have to start right now. Teams that are fighting for spots and teams that are a little more desperate, we have to match how desperate they are, and we have to go after them rather than sitting back and waiting for the game to come to us."
In Tuesday's 4-3 victory over the Dallas Stars, the Caps responded to Beagle's appeal as forwards Alex Ovechkin (one goal, two assists), T.J. Oshie (one goal, one assist), Lars Eller (two assists) and defenseman John Carlson (one goal, one assist) paced the Capitals' attack.
"These are big points now," Carlson told WashingtonCapitals.com. "Everyone can see how tight the race is and everyone is jockeying for position. You have to collect them when you can. And we had a good game tonight, so that's the most positive."
Offensively, the Capitals are led by the world-class Ovechkin, who leads Washington in goals with 44 and in points with 81. He's plus-4 and his average ice time of 20:04 per game is first among Washington's forward corps and fourth most on the team.
Ovechkin's 44 goals is tops in the NHL and his 311 shots also leads the league.
When he notched his 44th goal on Tuesday versus the Stars, it was career goal No. 602, which moved Ovechkin into 19th place on the NHL's all-time goal scoring list. He had been tied with Jari Kurri at 601 heading into the Dallas game.
Center Evgeny Kuznetsov is second in scoring on the Caps with 21 goals among his 71 points. He's plus-2 and his 50 assists leads the Capitals.
Kuznetsov missed his second straight game on Tuesday. During the second period of Friday's 6-3 victory against the Islanders, Kuznetsov left the game with an upper-body injury. He is listed as day-to-day and it's unclear if he'll be ready to play Thursday in Detroit.
Nicklas Backstrom (19 goals, 38 assists, minus-4), Oshie (16 goals, 25 assists, even), Eller (17 goals, 20 assists, even) and Tom Wilson (11 goals, 20 assists, plus-7, 175 penalty minutes) round out the Capitals' top scorers at forward.
Carlson, who scored the game winner against Dallas with 4:59 left in the third period is the Caps leading scorer on the back end with 15 goals and 46 assists for 61 points. He also leads the Capitals in ice time averaging 25:01 per game.
His 61 points puts Carlson in a tie with the Stars John Klingberg as the NHL's top scoring defenseman.
Dmitry Orlov (nine goals, 20 assists, plus-11, 23:08 average ice time), Matt Niskanen (six goals, 21 assists, plus-24, 22:36 average ice time) rookie Christian Djoos (three goals, 11 assists, plus-13) and veteran Brooks Orpik (nine assists, minus-11, 19:46 average ice time) shore up the Capitals' solid blue line.
Braden Holtby is the Caps No. 1 netminder. For the season, he's 31-15-4 with a 3.03 goals-against average and .906 save percentage.
Philipp Grubauer is Holtby's backup. He's 11-9-3, with 2.37 goals-against average, a solid .922 save percentage and two shutouts.
Thursday will be the Capitals' second trip to Detroit this season. Back on October 20, Washington defeated the Wings, 4-3, in overtime with Ovechkin netting the game-winner.
On February 11 in Washington, the Wings downed the Caps, 5-4, in overtime with former Red Wings forward Tomas Tatar scoring to give Detroit the win.
