Over the next two weeks, the Washington Capitals have three games against the NHL’s best team, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa took the Capitals to the breach in the Eastern Conference Final last May before relenting in Game Seven. These regular-season games will be a measuring stick for the Capitals to see just how good they really are this season.

“We’re going to have to go through them if we’re going to do it again,” Tom Wilson said to the Washington Post’s Isabelle Khurshudyan.

With such huge stakes in front of them, the team used their off day on Friday to prepare.

By tanning. On the beach.

Capitals defenseman Michal Kempny documented a shirtless Chandler Stephenson and his own thighs sprawled out on beach chairs somewhere near Tampa on the west coast of Florida.

Like cats sunning on a windowsill, the Capitals are getting their maximum dose of Vitamin D to power up against the Eastern Conference’s likely number one seed for the second-straight season.

This is a great strategy if you ask me.