April 14 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT, ESPN
Radio: Team 980/Caps Radio Network
Washington Capitals (42-30-9)
Columbus Blue Jackets (40-29-12)
Coming off a smashing weekend in which they swept a set of home-and-home back-to-back video games from the playoff-bound Pittsburgh Penguins, the Caps take to the highway but once more on Monday. They head to Columbus the place they may play their 2025-26 common season finale towards the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena.
As for what precisely the stakes of Tuesday’s recreation in Columbus might be, properly, these might be decided tonight in Philadelphia the place the Flyers host the Carolina Hurricanes. As of Monday morning, just one playoff berth stays to be claimed in the Eastern Conference, and Philadelphia at the moment occupies that slot.
Unlike Columbus and Washington, which have solely their Tuesday head-to-head date remaining to be performed this season, the Flyers have two video games remaining. Philly is internet hosting a set of back-to-back video games early in the week. After they tackle the Hurricanes on Monday, the Flyers host the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday. The Flyers want to choose up only one level to get rid of Columbus and two factors to manage the knockout punch to Washington.
So, whereas the Caps are heading to Columbus to complete off their common season slate on Tuesday, they want Philly to lose Monday evening’s match towards Carolina, which is prone to relaxation a raft of regulars, because the Penguins did in each video games towards the Caps over the weekend. What the Caps do know is they may have their collective eyeballs glued to the tv screens in Columbus on Monday evening, they usually hope the Hurricanes can defeat Philly, which might make their Tuesday evening tilt with the Jackets a significant one.
“We’re just going to obviously scoreboard watch [Monday] and see what happens,” says Caps middle Dylan Strome. “Nothing else we can do now, just go into Columbus and try to get two points. Hopefully, we get a good result [Monday] and that’s all we can focus on.”
With the sweep of the weekend set of back-to-backs, the Caps carry a three-game successful streak with them to Ohio’s capital metropolis, and no matter how issues end up on the out-of-town scoreboard on Monday evening, the Caps will take purpose at extending their successful streak to 4 once they go up towards the Jackets. Washington has had a handful of three-game successful streaks in latest weeks and months, nevertheless it hasn’t received 4 in a row because it had a six-game successful streak stopped on Dec. 5 in Anaheim.
The foremost motive the Caps awakened Monday morning with a faint playoff heartbeat is the play of goaltender Logan Thompson, who blanked the Penguins by a 3-0 depend on 24 photographs in Sunday’s rematch. An afternoon earlier, Thompson confronted a a lot lighter workload of only a dozen photographs in a 6-3 win over the Pens in Pittsburgh, in a recreation in which many regulars – together with Pens captain Sidney Crosby – sat out to get some additional relaxation forward of the beginning of the Stanley Cup playoffs this weekend.
“We know obviously that they’re a great hockey team,” says Strome of the Penguins. “We’re lucky that they didn’t play their full lineup each video games, however you continue to should go on the market and battle and get these wins. Sometimes these are more durable to play as a result of some guys are getting their alternative and totally different guys are stepping up for them.
“They gave us a good effort [Sunday]; they controlled the game for a lot of the third period, but we held firm and [Thompson] was great, and guys were blocking shots and making plays. Obviously, a huge play by [Connor McMichael] and [Ryan Leonard] to put that game away there in the third.”
Trevor van Riemsdyk broke a scoreless stalemate halfway by means of the center interval, staking the Caps to a 1-0 lead they carried into the third interval. As the Penguins turned the warmth up and pressured the Caps in their very own finish of the ice in search of an equalizer, Leonard arrange McMichael for a vital insurance coverage strike with 4:10 remaining. Two minutes later, a McMichael empty-net objective – with an help from Alex Ovechkin – iced the sport for the house staff, and sealed Thompson’s fourth shutout of the season and his second in a span of three begins.
Beyond all of the heroics on the ice, Sunday’s recreation was memorable as a day in which Washington followers lavished Ovechkin with love earlier than, throughout and after the sport. With the Caps’ captain’s contract expiring in June, and his future plans nonetheless undecided, the locals turned out in quantity, they usually turned up the quantity inside the sector, imploring the NHL’s biggest objective scorer for “one more year!” and frequent chants of “Ovi, Ovi, Ovi!”
“What he has done for this city, you can’t put into words,” says Caps proper wing Tom Wilson. “He’s actually modified the sport, he’s modified the sport of hockey, he’s modified all the things in this metropolis. What he’s achieved, it could not ever be achieved once more for a franchise.
“He was so important to the League, so important to the game of hockey, and so important to the city. You see the stuff he did off the ice on the segment the other night; that stuff is so important. I think there are hundreds of thousands of kids who play the game because of him and look up to him every day. He has worn all that and done it with class. And the amount of pressure he has been through, he just continues to exceed expectations and be a legend of the game.”
Sunday’s recreation was a beautiful tribute to Ovechkin. And given the must-win circumstances of the sport, it may have ended badly for the Caps if they’d gotten caught up in the feelings of the afternoon. But regardless of taking part in with out defenseman Rasmus Sandin, who has been one of many staff’s high performers in its late push for a postseason berth, the Caps shrugged it off and received the 2 factors.
With Sandin on the sidelines, Timothy Liljegren – obtained from San Jose on March 6 – stepped in and seamlessly skated 21:16 whereas seeing his first recreation motion in almost a month, since a March 14 recreation towards the Bruins in DC.
“I just think it speaks to our group,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of his staff’s clutch Sunday efficiency. “I knew even going again to the [trade] deadline when all of the stuff occurred with John [Carlson] and Nic [Dowd]. And as powerful as that was, I do know our guys and I do know O, and I do know Tom Wilson, and I do know that there was simply no method that we had been going to throw the towel in, and simply cruise in and hopefully play .500 hockey or simply experience it out.
“It doesn’t mean that we were going to make the playoffs, but I knew that we would not pack it in and we were going to fight to win hockey games, any which way you look, even if we were not as good a team, even if we were maybe leaking oil a little bit and giving up more chances, which is factual. And this is an example of exactly that; our guys are not laying down. The playoff odds and all that, it is what it is. It’s a slim chance, but we were not going to give into those odds and the chance of us making it. We were going to continue to try to get two points every single night and leave everything we’ve got on the ice.”
Now, each the Caps and Columbus are hoping for slightly little bit of assistance on Monday evening from Carolina. It’s as much as the Hurricanes now to present that means to Tuesday’s recreation between the Caps and the Jackets.
