March 15 vs. San Jose Sharks at SAP Center
Time: 5:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (43-15-8)
San Jose Sharks (18-40-9)
The Caps conclude their weeklong, three-game tour of California on Saturday afternoon in San Jose against the Sharks. Saturday’s game also concludes the season’s series between the two teams; San Jose defeated the Caps 2-1 in overtime in DC back on Dec. 3 of last year.
Washington has excelled at bouncing back from defeat this season, and that’s the situation it finds itself in as it faces the Sharks in the rubber match of the road trip. The Caps started the trip with a 7-4 win over the Ducks in Anaheim on Tuesday, but they could never quite get on track two nights later in Los Angeles, suffering a 3-0 shutout loss at the hands of the Kings.
“Those nights happen,” says Caps captain Alex Ovechkin of Thursday’s game. “Some things are not going your way. Obviously, [the Kings] defensively play well and don’t give us much. But overall, it’s a good lesson. If you look at the big picture, those games are going to be like that in playoffs. It’s going to be small spaces, it’s not going to be lots of openings, and you just have to get used to it. So it was good lesson for us [Thursday] night.”
The Caps are 17-4-1 in games following losses this season, and Thursday’s loss to the Kings is only their fourth setback by a margin of as many as three goals this season. The Caps had 24 such losses last season, third most in the NHL behind San Jose and Chicago. This season, their total of four is tied with Dallas for the fewest in the circuit.
In two of those four losses by three goals – the Caps have yet to lose by more than three goals this season – an empty-net goal from the opposition was needed for the winning margin to stretch to three.
The Los Angeles defense did what few teams have been able to do this season, namely shut down Washinton’s top six forward group. Thursday’s game marked the first time in 22 games – a span of nearly two months – that the Caps didn’t get at least one goal from one of their top six forwards.
Sixty-six games into the season, the Caps have had only nine games in which they did not get at least one goal from their top six forward group. Washington is 3-4-2 in those nine games.
“I feel like it’s been one of those lines at least going,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “And I read that’s the first time we’ve been shutout since Tampa [on Oct. 26], maybe 60 games ago. So we had gone on a pretty good stretch, but just not nearly good enough [Thursday] night, especially with the puck.”
Ovechkin leads Washington with 33 goals, but four other members of the top six – Tom Wilson (29), Aliaksei Protas (28), Connor McMichael (23) and Dylan Strome (20) – have reached the 20-goal plateau this season, and P-L Dubois is knocking on that door with 17 goals.
“We have such high-level players on our team, guys that will drag you into the fight,” says McMichael. “For example, a night like [Thursday] night when we’re not really feeling it, usually on nights like that, we have one of us that are stepping up and factoring in a big way. You look at the Anaheim game, and it was Pro. It honestly forces the other guys to pick up some slack and pick it up a little bit. When you play with elite players like that, there are guys who are going to make some big plays to drag guys into the fight. It’s pretty impressive.”
With six of Washington’s 21 shots in Thursday’s game – his highest single-game total in more than two years – against his former team, Dubois was the player trying to drag the Caps into the fight on Thursday in Los Angeles. But the Kings had other ideas.
“It’s a talented group,” says Dubois. “When we are on – which we are most of the time – we can do a little bit of everything out there, and we make the right plays most of the time, and then that leads to the next good play, and then that leads to a goal. It’s not always just one pass that leads to a goal; it could be a chip, it could be a good stick, and then it’s a nice pass, and then it’s a goal.
“I think [Thursday] night, that’s kind of what we were missing, was that one last play before our skill can take over. They’re a team that defends well, so sometimes you have to make what looks like a nothing play that leads to opening the game a bit more, and then the skill takes over. I think that’s what we’ve been good at this year. We are able to read off each other and do a little bit of everything out there.”
From League-leading Leon Draisaitl’s total of 47 goals down to the 14 players with exactly 20 goals through Thursday night’s NHL action, a total of 88 players have hit the 20-goal plateau this season. Along with Tampa Bay, Washington is one of only two teams with as many as five forwards with 20 or more goals this season.
“I think it just goes in line with our team in general,” says Carbery, of the consistency of his top six. “As consistent as we've been, as they take a lot of pride in showing up every night and delivering and playing to a standard that is required. And what they're trying to push themselves to get to is – Protas, McMichael, just go down the list – individually, all those guys are very, very motivated and trying to have the best years of their career. A lot of them are having that.
“And so I think it's just as simple as that. And then inside of our team, [defensemen] go into that, our goaltending goes into that. A lot of things play into us having success as a team, which then leads to Tom Wilson having whatever amount of goals he has. Aliaksei, [Ovechkin], all those guys are benefactors of that.”
After dropping the first two games of what is an eight-game homestand for San Jose, the Sharks got right here on Thursday night, prevailing by a 4-2 count over Chicago. That game featured the first-ever meeting between two teenage phenoms – the last two No. 1 overall picks in the last two NHL Drafts – Chicago’s Connor Bedard and San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini.
Both players hail from North Vancouver, BC, and both played their minor hockey in the Vancouver area.
San Jose is loaded with youth and promising young prospects. When veteran Sharks winger Tyler Toffoli closed out the scoring of Thursday’s win over the Blackhawks with an empty-net goal, it ended a streak of seven straight San Jose goals scored by rookies across a span of three games.
Included in that bunch was the first NHL goal for Patrick Giles, the Chevy Chase, MD native who made his NHL debut with Florida earlier this season. Giles joined the Sharks on March 5 in a trade that sent ex-Caps goaltender Vitek Vanecek to the Panthers. Giles victimized Nashville netminder Juuse Saros on Tuesday, notching his first NHL goal and point in his 11th NHL game, and his second as a member of the Sharks.
