March 20 vs. Toronto Maple Leafs at Capital One Arena
Team: 7:00 pm
TV: TNT
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Toronto Maple Leafs (38-20-9)
Washington Capitals (33-25-9)
Following a successful five-game western road trip – their last extended journey of the 2023-24 regular season – the Caps return home holding a three-game winning streak. They’ll now be able to settle in for a four-game homestand in the District, starting on Wednesday night with a visit from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Playing five games in eight nights in three different time zones with four border crossings, the Caps started the trip inauspiciously, with losses in Winnipeg and Edmonton. But they got right in the back half of the journey, taking 2-1 wins in Seattle and Vancouver and then finishing with a 5-2 victory over the Flames in Calgary on Monday night.
“This was a really, really difficult road trip,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “To come and work your way out west – Winnipeg and Edmonton – and then go to the coast, and then come back to Alberta. It’s not easy; these are all really, really good teams. Every single night you have to crank it up mentally and physically. And then you add the travel, and you add the lack of sleep, all that stuff.
“To come in here [to Calgary] and to get a result, and to be able to score the way we did – the power play stepped up – and to get out of here with two points, sometimes you’ve got to win ugly, and we’ll take it.”
Caps’ captain Alex Ovechkin scored a pair of power-play goals in the second period of Monday’s win in Calgary, reaching the 20-goal plateau for the season in the process. He has scored 20 or more goals in 19 consecutive seasons, a feat previously accomplished by just two other players: Gordie Howe (22 seasons) and Brendan Shanahan (19). Ovechkin is the only player in League history to start his career with 19 straight seasons with 20 or more goals.
“Consistency,” says Carbery when asked for his thoughts on Ovechkin’s feat. “And not just the one from the scoring part, but also him being in the lineup and being durable and being able to play game after game after game, all these years. Happy for him; he gets his 20th and 21st, and they were huge. We needed every single bit of those two goals tonight, to get us in front, and to be able to play from in front because you could tell early on that we had zero legs, and mentally we were just not [on]. Some of the puck decisions, plays – it was uncharacteristic.”
Ovechkin’s career goal total has climbed to 843; he is now 52 goals shy of passing Wayne Gretzky (894) for the top spot on the League’s all-time goals ledger.
Ovechkin has scored 12 of his 21 goals this season in the 20 games since the All-Star break, helping the Caps to forge an 11-7-2 mark over that span.
Monday’s win also vaulted the Capitals into the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, the first team they’ve been in the postseason picture since Jan. 2, some 77 days ago. With 15 games remaining – two-thirds of them against Atlantic Division foes – the Caps occupy eighth place in the Eastern Conference, one point ahead of Detroit. The Red Wings are the last team to town on Washington’s upcoming four-game homestand; Detroit will close the homestand on Tuesday, March 26.
“Obviously the trip didn’t start the way we wanted it to, but we found a way to get it done the last three,” says Caps’ center Dylan Strome. “Before this road trip started, if you said we’d go 3-2 I think we probably would have been pretty happy with that. We played some really good teams on this road trip, and in some tough buildings, so I think we’re just coming together at the right time as a team.
“We’re obviously not looking too far ahead, but we’ve got some tough games coming up. The points are huge; it’s nice to climb back into a playoff spot. Now, every team is going to be hoping that we lose, like we’ve been doing for other teams.”
The Caps’ three-game winning streak is their fifth of at least that length this season, and their first since Feb. 17-22. Washington’s longest winning spree of the season was a five-game run from Nov. 10-22.
Washington last saw the Leafs on Oct. 24 here when Toronto posted a 4-1 victory here in the District. On target for an eighth straight postseason appearance, the Leafs are finishing up a set of back-to-back games on Wednesday in D.C. Toronto’s road trip consists just of the set of back-to-backs in Philly and Washington.
On Tuesday night in Philly, Toronto dropped a 4-3 decision to the Flyers. Down 3-0 after two periods, the Leafs staged a late rally that fell just short at the end. Coupled with a Saturday night shootout setback at the hands of the Hurricanes in Toronto, Tuesday’s loss saddles the Leafs with consecutive defeats – of any kind – for the first time in just over two months.
The Leafs went 0-3-1 from Jan. 11-16, and even with the consecutive losses, Toronto is 17-7-1 since that four-game slide two months back.
