ARLINGTON, VA — The Washington Capitals were the final team to earn a playoff spot in 2024, clinching at the last possible moment with a Game 82 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. Nearly a year later, they’ll face the Flyers once again on Thursday night as they look to become the first team to secure a place in the 2025 postseason.
Head coach Spencer Carbery spoke Thursday morning on the sharp contrast between the down-to-the-wire chase of last spring and this year’s chance to lead the charge.
“Yeah, how crazy is that?” he said Thursday morning. “That is wild.”
Washington will need some help to clinch this early, relying on results from other games as well as the team’s performance against Philadelphia. Per the NHL, three scenarios could see the Caps earn a spot Thursday:
- If the Capitals beat the Flyers in regulation, they need the Montreal Canadiens to get at least one point over the New York Islanders.
- If the Capitals win in overtime or a shootout, they need the Islanders to lose in any fashion.
- If the Capitals lose in overtime or a shootout, they need the Islanders to lose in regulation and the Columbus Blue Jackets to lose to the Florida Panthers in any fashion.
After the Caps watched last year’s playoff picture with bated breath, this year’s chase of a spot holds far less of a chokehold over the locker room. Carbery suspected some players on this year’s roster might not even know they could clinch a spot Thursday.
“(It) hasn’t been talked about,” Carbery said. “I’m going to guess 50 percent of our players would know that.”
Some of his players may still be in the dark, but Carbery is plenty aware of his team’s chances.
“Oh yeah. I have some light reading in the morning that I do,” he said. “So yeah, I did read that. And I’m sure — I would say most of our guys probably know, or that’s caught their eye, of the scenario where that comes to fruition.”
It’s the first time Carbery has been in this situation. He’s in just his second season as an NHL head coach — last year’s playoff chase was a frantic battle for the final wild card spot, while this year’s team has a shot at the Presidents’ Trophy. Without the do-or-die pressure of last April, Carbery noticed that his motivation came from elsewhere, the chance to clinch a spot still valuable but fading into the background.
“Stress level’s a little bit lower,” Carbery said, chuckling, when asked to compare his anticipation between the two seasons. “I don’t know. That’s a hard question. You want to get that ‘x’ by your name because it’s a for sure scenario and you want that as soon as you possibly can. We’ve felt like we’re in a pretty good spot for the last couple of weeks, three weeks. So the anticipation of it has been more of, ‘Let’s try to keep this thing going. And let’s try to continue to play at a high level and continue to accumulate points and continue to try to be the top team in the NHL.’”
“I think it’s been more of that as opposed to, ‘Jeez, when are we going to make the playoffs? How many more points do we need to make the playoffs?’ If that makes any sense. It’s just — not to disrespect the fact that last year in the last eight games, we’re hanging on every single game that takes place in the league, let alone our games. But it’s just a little bit different this year, understandably, to that.”
The Capitals may not even know whether they’ve managed to secure a spot until well after their game ends: they’ll face the Flyers at 7:00 pm at Capital One Arena, while the Islanders and Canadiens won’t face off until 7:30. But from their spot atop the league standing, the specifics fade to the background — clinch or no clinch, the Caps know they’ve already punched their ticket.
