Improbably, with 15 games left, the Washington Capitals woke up Tuesday morning in a playoff spot. Their grip on the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference was tenuous — and it would only hold for a few hours — but it was also notable: Washington was back above the line for the first time in 76 days.
The past 76 days have been a roller coaster for Washington. A 4-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Jan. 2 briefly pushed the Capitals over the playoff threshold, but just four more wins in the 12 contests between that game and the all-star break in early February knocked Washington back out of the race.
Back-to-back losses in the first two games after the break — to the Montreal Canadiens and the Florida Panthers — didn’t help the Capitals’ case. But then Washington went to Boston and ended a six-game skid with a shutout of the Bruins, and the tide started to turn. That win began an 11-5-2 run for the Capitals in their past 18 games, including the three-game winning streak they’re riding after a Western Conference road trip.
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Washington’s dressing room at the Saddledome in Calgary was raucous Monday night after the Capitals beat the Flames to finish the trip with three wins out of five — after starting 0-2, losing to the Winnipeg Jets and the Edmonton Oilers by a combined score of 10-2.
The Capitals rebounded from those losses with 2-1 wins in Seattle and Vancouver, then capped the trip with a 5-2 victory in Calgary.
“Obviously, the trip didn’t start the way we wanted it to, but we found a way to get it done in the last three,” center Dylan Strome said. “I think before this road trip started, if you said we’d go 3-2, I think we would’ve been pretty happy with that.”
“I think we knew that our standard wasn’t what the first two games were,” center Hendrix Lapierre added. “We had really tough games, and we knew we needed to turn it around. Games are so important that you can’t take the foot off the gas pedal. … I feel like we just have a poised group that knows what it takes. We have a lot of big games coming up, but I think we’re pretty satisfied with the way the last three games went.”
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Five-game swings through the Western Conference are rarely easy, but Washington’s schedule on this trip, which included a back-to-back between Edmonton and Seattle and four border crossings in 10 days, was particularly punishing. The Capitals weren’t at their best Monday in Calgary, but they didn’t need to be to take a critical two points — the two points that temporarily pushed them past the Detroit Red Wings for the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot.
“It’s a really, really difficult road trip to come, work your way out west, Winnipeg, Edmonton, then go to the coast and then come back to Alberta,” Coach Spencer Carbery said. “... Every single night, you have to crank it up mentally and physically. Then you add the travel and the lack of sleep, all that stuff, so to come in here and get a result … sometimes you’ve got to win ugly.”
The out-of-town scoreboard helped the Capitals, too, as the Red Wings have sputtered — before edging back in front of Washington with an overtime win Tuesday, they had just one victory in their previous nine games — and the New York Islanders have lost five straight. The Philadelphia Flyers, who hold the third spot in the Metropolitan Division, haven’t pulled away from the pack, either. Even after a win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, the Flyers are only three points ahead of the Capitals, and Washington has two games in hand on both Detroit and Philadelphia.
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“I think we’re just coming together at the right time as a team,” Strome said. “Obviously not looking too far ahead, but we’ve got some tough games coming up. The points are huge. Nice to climb back into a playoff spot. Every team now is going to be hoping that we lose, like we’ve been doing for other teams.”
The path is still difficult for the Capitals down the stretch. Washington has two games remaining against Detroit and two against the Buffalo Sabres, as well as two games each against the Bruins, the Maple Leafs and the Carolina Hurricanes, all of whom sit ahead of Washington as some of the best teams in the East.
With how tight the race is, it could come down to the season’s final day, when the Capitals play the Flyers in Philadelphia. The Capitals’ “one game at a time” mantra remains their touchstone, as Carbery emphasized when asked about his team being back above the playoff line after the win in Calgary.
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“We’re focusing one day at a time,” he said as a smiled stretched across his face.
But after turning around what could’ve been a disastrous road trip, Washington finds itself largely in control of its fate heading into the stretch run.
“We know we still can do it,” captain Alex Ovechkin said. “We still can be in the battle. Every point counts. Of course, we all knew we’re going to play against teams who are fighting for a playoff spot as well, and it’s going to be playoff atmosphere. It’s started good for us.”
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