April 4 vs. Chicago Blackhawks at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Chicago Blackhawks (21-44-10)
Washington Capitals (48-18-9)
With the eyes of the hockey and sporting world upon them, the Caps make a quick stop at home on Friday to host the Chicago Blackhawks in their final game against a Western Conference opponent this season. Each of Washington’s final half dozen games of the season will be played against a Metropolitan Division rival.
Attention and eyes are fully fixed on the Caps because captain Alex Ovechkin has scored in each of the team’s last three games – across a span of just four nights – to whittle the distance between himself (892 career goals) and Wayne Gretzky (894) to just two. That leaves Ovechkin a hat trick shy of becoming the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer.
Ovechkin has 33 career hat tricks, including one against the Blackhawks in Chicago on Dec. 13, 2022, a three-goal eruption that moved him from 797 to 800 career goals in one night, leaving him a goal shy of matching Gordie Howe (801) for second place behind Gretzky on the all-time goals ledger.
Friday’s game against Chicago is the first of three remaining home games for the Capitals; Washington plays four more games on the road between now and the start of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“It’s going to be pretty crazy,” says Caps defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk, of the expected atmosphere at Capital One Arena on Friday. “It feels like it’s right there, and he feels like he’s still scoring every night. It’s been huge for us, and obviously awesome for him, that he is still doing it at this torrid pace. And if he hadn’t gotten hurt, he’d probably be right up there with the most this year.”
van Riemsdyk’s point is legitimate; it’s tantalizing to wonder how many goals Ovechkin would have right now if he hadn’t suffered a fractured leg in a freak collision in Utah on Nov. 18, an injury that sidelined him for 16 games, the longest absence of his NHL career. Upon returning from that absence, he quickly silenced any doubt by scoring four goals in his first five games back.
And if we turn the clock back one year, to last April 4, Ovechkin has not gone more than three games without a goal, and he has scored 44 goals in 67 games. Only one player in the NHL – Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl – has more (54 goals in 77 games) over that span.
Goal No. 892 came as so many before it did, on the power play – a two-man advantage in this instance – on Wednesday night in Carolina. It was a one-time clapper from his office, though the shot came from the high inside area of the left circle rather than the left dot epicenter from which he typically does his office work.
Washington has five 5-on-3 goals this season – tied for second in the NHL, Chicago leads with seven – and Ovechkin has scored three of those five.
Unfortunately, the captain’s third goal in as many games was Washington’s lone goal in a 5-1 loss to the Hurricanes in Carolina. Wednesday’s game in Raleigh – the Caps’ 75th of the season to date – featured a few firsts. It was the first which the Caps lost by a margin of more than three goals this season, and it marked the first time all season that Washington had trailed by as many as four goals at any point in any game.
And finally, it was the first game this season started by goaltender Logan Thompson that the Calgary native was unable to finish. Thompson took a shot to the head in the first period, a Sean Walker drive that stopped play when it knocked the goaltender’s mask from his head. Thompson finished the period, yielding three goals against on a dozen shots before yielding to Charlie Lindgren at the outset of the middle frame; Caps coach Spencer Carbery said Thompson would be evaluated by Washington’s medical staff on Thursday, a welcome off day for the team after three tilts in four nights, with travel for each game.
Aside from Ovechkin’s third goal in as many games, one of the bright spots from Wednesday’s loss was the play of Ryan Leonard in his second NHL game. In a whirlwind of a week in which his Boston College team was eliminated from the NCAA postseason tournament on Sunday, he signed his entry level contract with the Capitals on Monday, and he debuted against the Bruins in Boston on Tuesday, Leonard logged 15:45 on Wednesday in Carolina, recording a shot on net while three other attempts were blocked.
Early in the first period of what was still a scoreless game, Leonard made a nice feed to linemate Aliaksei Protas on a 2-on-1 rush, only to see Carolina netminder Frederik Andersen make the save on Protas' backhand bid.
Friday night provides Caps fans their first ever look at Leonard on home ice. His new teammates have already been actively welcoming him into the fold during the brief two-game road trip earlier in the week.
“It's huge if you have a room that's welcoming,” says Caps winger Tom Wilson, who, like Leonard, made his NHL debut without the benefit of ever having skated in a preseason game at that level. “I think the culture here has been that way for a long time, that each guy is pulling for the guy next to him, and each guy is there for the guy if they need it, and he's going to go out there and give it his all, and the rest of the room will be there to stick up for him and make sure that if he needs anything, we're here for him and just support him as a teammate.
“He seems like a great kid. I think everybody in here is excited to see it; it takes you back to when you were a kid coming into the league, and those moments are what you always remember. And as a teammate, just as a hockey player playing in the NHL, these are the moments that you always look forward to.”
Chicago is still in a teardown/rebuild that netted them the first overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, center Connor Bedard, now in his sophomore season with the Hawks. When Washington visited the Windy City in December, the Caps carried a 2-0 lead into the third period, but that two-goal lead was exposed as fool’s gold when the Hawks rallied for a 3-2 regulation victory. It’s Washington’s only regulation loss in a game in which they had a two-goal lead this season, and Chicago is the only team against which the Caps have not earned a point this season.
Chicago’s win over Washington on Dec. 17 was the second victory of a three-game winning streak for the Hawks, their only streak of more than two games all season. The Hawks are 4-13-3 since the League’s Four Nations Face-Off pause; only Boston (3-13-3) has a lower points percentage across that span. Chicago has yielded an average of exactly four goals against per game over that stretch, tied with Pittsburgh for the most in the NHL.
The Hawks are 1-9-2 in their last dozen games, and they’ve been outscored by an aggregate 50-27 in the process.
