While the Washington Capitals may be fully healthy by the time the NHL regular season restarts, they will have little margin for error during their final 23 games if they hope to make the playoffs for a third consecutive season under Spencer Carbery. Per MoneyPuck, they have just a 33 percent chance of making the postseason.
The Capitals are currently four points out of a possible playoff spot, with two possible paths to the postseason. The New York Islanders sit in third place in the Metropolitan Division with a game in hand on the Caps, while the Boston Bruins occupy the second wild card position with two games in hand on the Caps.
Tuesday afternoon, Carbery met with media after the team’s optional skate — their first since the Olympic break began — and was hopeful that not only captain Alex Ovechkin can finish the season strong, but the team as a whole.
“I mean, we’re going to need to hit the ground running here right out of the gate,” Carbery said. “We’ll talk about it as a group, but we know where we sit and what we’re up against, and we’re just going to have to stay very short-term with it. But there’s not a lot of margin for error, so everybody’s going to have to be playing, and our team as a collective is going to have to be playing at a high level right out of this break.”
The Capitals start with an incredibly difficult stretch, playing three games in four nights. Their first matchup comes against the Philadelphia Flyers at Capital One Arena on Wednesday, February 25. They then play the Vegas Golden Knights at home on Friday, February 27, before flying to Montreal for a matchup against the Canadiens on February 28.
“We’ll have a pretty strategic plan with what we do,” Carbery said. “We’re going to skate. We’re going to have some days off in between. We go right out into a three-in-four, so you have to be a little bit strategic with a day off, sort of leading up. We’ll have a practice and then play the three-in-four, so we’ll ramp up here. Part of it is the physical part. Okay, that’s probably the first day, day and a half of practices. And then the second portion will be the mental, the speed, the doing things at a game pace, special teams, some certain scenarios that we want to walk through and make sure that we get adequate reps.
“Because, as you know, coming down the stretch, practices are going to be few and far between. So, if we can get some added practice time, whether that’s working on five on six, six on five, some special team stuff, overtime potentially, where now, you know, can you pick up a couple extra points in overtime where we’ve paid attention to some of the small details that we need to brush up on that we’ve seen over the past 59 games. There’s multiple boxes that we’re going to try to check as we go through this week, and making sure that we’re ramping up to being ready to go when we see Philly next week.”
If the Capitals are going to earn an opportunity to play for a second Stanley Cup, they’ll need to take advantage of their remaining strength of schedule, which is only the 17th most difficult in the league according to Tankathon, and take care of business in games against teams beneath them in the Eastern Conference standings. They have 3 games remaining against the Flyers, 2 against the New Jersey Devils, and 1 each against the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs.
As three of the team’s stars play in the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament on Wednesday morning, the Capitals will hold their first full mandatory practice in Arlington, VA.
“I expect everybody to be here tomorrow,” Carbery said.
