April 10 vs. Carolina Hurricanes at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: MNMT, ESPN+, Hulu, Disney+
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7
Carolina Hurricanes (46-27-4)
Washington Capitals (49-19-9)
Following a fortuitously timed three-day break in their schedule, the Caps return to action on Thursday night at Capital One Arena when they host the Carolina Hurricanes in the final game this season between the two Metropolitan Division rivals. Thursday’s game is the Caps’ penultimate home contest of the regular season, and it begins one final five-game sprint between now and the opening of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Caps come into Thursday’s game on the heels of a 4-1 loss to the Islanders in New York on Sunday, a setback that must rank among the most inconsequential regular season losses any team has ever suffered in pro sports history. That’s because Washington’s lone goal in that game was the 895th career goal for Caps captain Alex Ovechkin, a tally that put him all alone atop the NHL’s all-time goals ledger, passing Wayne Gretzky (894), who held the top spot for just over 31 years.
Ovechkin’s record-breaking goal came some 36 hours after he tied Gretzky with a two-goal game in a 5-3 victory over Chicago at Capital One Arena on Friday, so the past weekend was among the most consequential in Washington’s half-century franchise history.
The Capitals took Monday off and conducted a lightly attended optional skills session on Tuesday before returning to a more normal practice situation on Wednesday at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. But it wasn’t completely normal; there were 895 vocally appreciative elementary school students packing the ‘Plex to show their reverence for the newly crowned goal-scoring king.
After practice, the entire team took a lap – led by Ovechkin – to show their appreciation, and the Gr8 Eight replicated his headlong celebration dive for the packed house, to the delight of all.
“[Caps defenseman John Carlson] tells me the kids want to see it,” says Ovechkin. “So, okay, yeah. It’s a great memory.”
“It was a lot of fun to see all those kids there,” says Caps forward Connor McMichael. “I remember when I was at that age, and this would have been one of the coolest days of my life. Just to be able to see them and thank them there at the end of practice was pretty cool, and to hear all the yelling and screaming.”
Thursday promises more of the same when Ovechkin is feted ahead of the Caps’ tilt with the Canes.
“I think it’s going to be incredible,” says Caps center Dylan Strome. “I think it’s going to be awesome, probably similar to [last] Friday night I would imagine. Everyone wants to show their appreciation and their support, as they should. It’s going to be cool, it’s going to be loud, and it’s going to be a fun game to play in, and I’m looking forward to it.”
This three-day pause between games is a late season mini oasis for the Caps, who enter Thursday’s game with a 2-4-1 mark in their last seven games, the team’s longest stretch without stacking wins together this season. That says much more about how well the Caps played over their first 70 games than how relatively ordinary they’ve been over the last seven.
Now they’ve got a five-game runway into the playoffs, which begin underway only two days after Washington’s season finale in Pittsburgh on April 17. The Caps have five games to get their house in order ahead of the playoffs, and this well-timed respite of three days might be the longest they’ll have for a while.
“That’s going to be our biggest challenge, coming off such a unique, thrilling experience celebrating that achievement,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “And now having to completely reset mentally, and to focus on the task at hand, of playing well as a team and making sure that we’re putting ourselves in the best position possible to play well in the playoffs.
“And that’s my job, and our leadership and basically our entire team’s job, is to physically and mentally start to reset, and make sure that we’re ready to go for [Thursday] night.”
After being at or near the top of the League standings for the first 70 games of the season, the Caps’ overall game has sagged of late. They’ve been a bit porous defensively, yielding three or more goals against in each of their last eight games (3-4-1).
Washington endured a longer such stretch of 11 straight games of surrendering three or more goals against earlier this season – the Caps went 5-3-3 from Jan. 30-March 3 in the previous stretch – matching the team’s longest in nearly 35 years (2-7-2 over 11 games from Dec. 15, 1990-Jan. 5, 1991).
“That’s an area of our game that sticks out to me as an issue,” says Carbery. “We just need to tighten up. And I give our guys a little bit of a pass because of the circumstances surrounding the last 10 games. There was a lot going on. And guys, whether they want to admit it or not, and whether I want to admit it and acknowledge it or not, as much as I want to block it out, as much as I want to say, ‘No, we’re strictly focused on the Winnipeg Jets, the Minnesota Wild,’ whatever the opponent was, it’s impossible to block the record and what was going on inside of the games out.
“So, now that that’s gone, now that he’s achieved that, it’s important that we pay attention to some things defensively that we need to get back inside of our game. I feel like we lost a little bit of that because we wanted to score, we wanted to help [Ovechkin]; we were a little bit loose.
“And I always say this in this League: If you lose just five or 10 percent of any type of detail – your defensive detail – that’s enough that now you’re giving up five, six, seven more scoring chances. That’s a goal and a half a game or whatever it might be. It’s a really important area of our game that we’ve got to make sure that we’re looking after.”
Nine nights ago in Raleigh, Carolina got the best of the Caps in the previous meeting between the two teams. The Canes prevailed 5-1 in a game in which Washington’s only goal came on a 5-on-3 power-play strike from Ovechkin, his 892nd career goal.
That April 2 game in Raleigh marked the first time all season – in the Caps’ 75th game of the campaign – in which Washington trailed by as many as four goals at any point in any game. The four-goal deficit at game’s end also marks the only time all season the Caps have suffered a loss by more than three goals.
Since defeating the Caps on home ice just over a week ago, Carolina has come up empty on the first three games (0-3-0) of a four-game road trip, falling to a trio of Atlantic Division opponents – Detroit, Boston and Buffalo, respectively – by a combined score of 13-4.
Most recently, the Canes suffered a 3-0 whitewashing at the hands of the Sabres on Tuesday, an occurrence that clinched the Caps’ first Metro Division crown since their fifth of five straight Metro titles in 2019-20. Thursday’s game completes the trip for the Canes, who are virtually locked into a second-place divisional finish and a first-round Stanley Cup Playoff date with the New Jersey Devils.
