Caps finish two-game homestand Tuesday vs. defending Cup champion Florida
Feb. 4 vs. Florida Panthers at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Florida Panthers (32-19-3)
Washington Capitals (34-11-7)
Three nights after a 5-4 overtime loss to the Winnipeg Jets – the top team in the Western Conference – the Caps conclude a two-game homestand on Tuesday night when they host the first of two visits this season from the Florida Panthers, the top team in the Atlantic Division.
For the first time in more than a month and a half, the Caps go into Tuesday’s tilt on the heels of consecutive losses; they fell to Ottawa last Thursday in 5-4 overtime defeat in the finale of their five-game road trip. The Caps obviously pulled points in each of those losses and they remain atop the NHL’s standings with a .721 points percentage.
Saturday night’s prime time event – prime time of the evening, and prime time of the season – pitted the Caps and the Jets, the League’s top two teams, and the game itself lived up to billing and the relative rareness of the event, too. Saturday’s game marked just the 16th time since 2000 that the top teams from each conference went head-to-head beyond the 50-game mark of the season.
And when you consider that the Caps and Jets both entered Saturday’s game ranked as the top two teams in both goals for and goals against per game, Saturday night’s game is an even rarer event. It was the first time since a Habs-Isles clash on March 22, 1979 that the top two teams in each conference battled one another while both were in the top two in the League in both goals for and against. Back in the pre-merger days of March, 1979, the NHL was a mere 17-team entity.
After spotting the Jets an early 2-0 lead on Saturday, the Caps roared back from a two-goal deficit in the third period – doing so for the second time in as many games – to force overtime. Although they made a couple of uncharacteristic defensive zone turnovers that bit them against the Jets, Washington’s offensive zone play at 5-on-5 was strong and productive, particularly in the game’s final 40 minutes.
“I thought we did a good job of putting a lot of pucks in areas where we could get them back,” says Caps center Nic Dowd. “And that makes a big difference, because I think our team is a really, really good forechecking team. And what that eventually does is that sets up plays on the rush.
“At the beginning of games, everybody is working hard, everybody is dialed into the game and everyone is tracking back. But then as the game gets going and it gets into the second and the third [periods] that’s when you see teams – both sides – start making mistakes, and that’s where you’ll have rush opportunities, and things opening up and guys with skill making plays and taking over. But it doesn’t happen without backing the other team up and making the [defensemen] go get the puck, and forcing them to make plays under pressure, and causing them to become tired. That’s when they’re prone to mistakes, so I thought we did a good job of that against Winnipeg.”
Also, being beyond that 50-game mark of the season, we can expect things to be tighter from here on out. That began well before Saturday night. In their 37 games before the flip of the calendar this season, the Caps played 13 one-goal games and went to overtime on five occasions. Eight of Washington’s 15 games thus far in the 2025 portion of the schedule have been one-goal affairs, and seven of them have gone beyond the requisite 60 minutes of regulation hockey.
“Yeah, and I think the opponent, too,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “You could tell that the quality of the opponent – through personnel, but also through the way that they play – is really consistent. And what I find – and it’s going to be no different against Florida – is it becomes just a territorial chess match of forecheck pucks to good spots, and no one cracks.
“And so what happens in those games, and we were making way too many mistakes; obviously both teams are going to make mistakes and Winnipeg made some mistakes as well, but it’s essentially who can minimize mistakes, and who can control territory more. Because the chances and the huge opportunities are going to be few and far between. It’s who can impose territory for longer, and just lean on ‘em, and lean on ‘em, and lean on ‘em and make them crack. And it will be the same way [Tuesday] night.”
Facing Winnipeg feels like a nice primer for the Caps in preparation for facing Florida in their very next game.
“I would agree with that,” says Dowd. “I’d say they’re very similar teams. They take away the high scoring areas very well, in their [defensive] zone. They forecheck really well; they’re hard and heavy. They’re hard on you, they make it challenging to break out, they forecheck you really well. And then they have some elite players, both teams do.
“But for whatever reason, we tend to match up well against teams that play our style of hockey, too. Traditionally, we have tougher times with teams that are more ‘run and gun,’ individuals and teams that are more ‘off script’ as opposed to these bigger, heavy, stronger teams that maybe play a little bit tighter.”
And the best of the best – like Florida – don’t just play just a little bit tighter in the defensive zone, either.
“I would say the elite teams, they do it the right way, and they make it difficult all over the ice,” says Caps defenseman John Carlson. “Whether that's ultra pressure, like Carolina or something like that – and it's a little bit different than that – it has kind of the same feel in terms of time and space being at a premium. You’ve got to be able to make quick, tight plays against them, and that's what they're good at in tight spaces, too, is making those plays, hitting that F3, turning the puck over. Difficult teams, they make it hard all over the ice for you.”
The defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers certainly fall into that realm.
Florida brings a three-game winning streak to town; the Panthers ran the table on a three-game homestand, prevailing over Los Angeles, Chicago and the Islanders, respectively. In the Cats’ most recent win – a 6-2 cooling of the Islanders on Sunday – noted Caps killer Carter Verhaeghe notched a hat trick, the fourth of his NHL career.
Over the weekend, in victories over Chicago and the Isles, Florida rolled up 11 goals, two of them coming on the power play and just one of them an empty-netter. Verhaeghe and linemates Sasha Barkov and Sam Reinhart paced the attack in those victories, combining for six goals and 16 points.
The Panthers will make one more trip into town this season; they’ll visit the District on March 22.
