March 5 vs. New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: TNT, truTV, MAX
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (39-14-8)
New York Rangers (30-25-4)
Seeking its 40th victory of the season – a total that would match its output from last season – Washington makes its first and only trip to Manhattan this season where it will take on the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.
The Caps concluded a five-game homestand on Monday with a 5-4 shootout victory over the Ottawa Senators, a win that quelled their three-game losing streak, their longest of the season to date.
Monday’s game with the Sens started at 6:30 pm local time; each of Washington’ first eight games of March features a starting time that is unique from the other seven, and only the last three of those games are in a different time zone.
The early start didn’t get anyone out of the building early on Monday; a coach’s challenge, a full overtime and a shootout took care of that. With two goals in the game’s first four minutes, the Caps were able to play with a lead for the first time in over a week, and when Tom Wilson – who had a Gordie Howe hat trick in the game -- struck on the power play early in the second, the Caps had a 3-0 lead.
But the Caps have faced a slew of desperate teams of late, teams either trying to push their way toward the playoff cutline or to cling tightly to their tenuous hold on one of the two available wild card slots. The Sens are one of those teams, and they slowly clawed their way back into the contest, scoring late in the second and making it a 3-2 game with a power-play goal early in the third.
One of the hallmarks of Washington’s goaltending tandem of Charlie Lindgren and Logan Thompson has been the refusal of both to yield a goal against that would put their team behind late in a game; it’s been a rare occurrence this season. And while the Sens did strike for three third-period goals on Monday, none of those goals gave Ottawa a lead, and Thompson was stellar in shutting down the Sens on a power play in overtime, and he then blanked them in the shootout.
Dylan Strome scored the only goal of the skills competition, and the Caps were able to eke out a 5-4 win to stop their short slide.
Last season, the Caps were fighting and clawing at this stage of the season, vying with several other teams for the final wild card berth in the East. This season, their playoff position is all but mathematically ensured. With 21 games remaining, the Caps could finish with 107 points just by playing .500 hockey the rest of the way. But that’s not the plan; the Capitals are looking to use the last six weeks of the season to shore up their overall game and get themselves into a mode where they’re ready to jump out of the starting blocks when the playoffs get underway in mid-April.
“Every year when you come down the stretch, the hockey gets really important, no matter what position you're in, whether you're fighting to get in, whether you're fighting to hold your playoff spot, hold first place, whatever,” says Wilson. You want to be dialed in on your game, and you want to be feeling good about your game. I don't think you ever want to be just taking it easy going into the playoffs; it's very hard to flip the switch.
“For the next 20 games or so – whatever's left – we're going to have to make sure that we're building our game, we're learning. And I think with a coach like Carbs, he's always on top of us to keep adding stuff to our game. We're finding a way to win in different situations and play in tight hockey games, but it really doesn't matter what we've done so far; you want to be finishing the year strong and ready to have a good run. And get to the dance and see what happens.”
With 55 wins and 114 points the Rangers were last season’s Presidents’ Trophy-winning team, and like most teams who’ve won that trophy, they fell short of winning the one they were actually after, the Stanley Cup. New York swept the Capitals in the first round of the playoffs and pushed past Carolina in the second round. The Blueshirts then fell to Florida in the Eastern Conference Final series, but entering this season, New York was still seen as one of the elite teams of the east.
The Rangers rolled out to a strong 12-4-1 start, but they soon hit the rumble strips. After that start, the Blueshirts went seven weeks without winning consecutive games; they went 6-16-1 over that span.
New York has managed to string together consecutive wins six times since Jan. 9, posting a solid 13-6-2 record over that stretch. The Caps catch the Rangers as they’ve won two in a row again; New York enters Wednesday’s game on the heels of consecutive 4-0 shutout victories at home. The Blueshirts beat Nashville by that count behind Jonathan Quick on Sunday and turned the trick again a night later against the Islanders with Igor Shesterkin between the pipes.
Going into Tuesday night’s slate of NHL activity, the Rangers – who have been one of the League’s most active teams in the trade market this season – are tied with Detroit for the final wild card slot in the Eastern Conference. The Red Wings hold a game in hand on the Rangers.
