Don’t put the season to bed just yet!
The Washington Capitals 6-4 win over Philadelphia wraps up a 7-4-2 March and keeps them on the outskirts of playoff contention with seven games remaining in the regular season.
Three straight wins to enter the final month delivers cause for confidence, even minus two key cogs who were dealt right before the March 6 trading deadline.
Nic Dowd centered the fourth line spectacularly since his arrival in 2018 while John Carlson was one of those players you thought might be a cradle-to-grave player for this organization like Alex Ovechkin or Nicklas Backstrom.
While it would have been nice to have the 36-year-old who can still contribute (10 goals and 36 assists this winter) retire a Capital the potential return for an aging team retooling on the fly was too tempting. They’ll have five picks in this year’s NHL Draft plus eight selections in 2027. And eventually Carlson will be back at Capital One Arena to see his number 74 go up in the rafters. But for now, the Caps remain in the race for their playoff lives.
Record: 38-28-9 and in sixth place of the Metropolitan Division. They currently stand four points behind the New York Islanders for third place while they’re three shy of Columbus for the second Wild Card. The Caps wrap up the regular season with the Bluejackets while four of their other remaining six games are against clubs with winning records.
Rankings: Entering April the Caps rank 15th (3.15 goals per game) in scoring and seventh (2.89) in goals against, 25th (17.8%) on the power play and 13th (80.0%) on the penalty kill. Both special teams’ units improved over the last month, but not enough to make a major difference.
Iceman of the Month: Ovechkin tallied seven goals with two assists, including two big goals in a March 31 win over Philadelphia.
Hot Sticks and Cold Pads: Ryan Leonard scored six goals with three assists while Connor McMichael and Jakob Chychrun added two goals with six assists. Trevor van Riemsdyk (zero goals and four assists) led the team in plus/minus for March with a +7. Logan Thompson saw action in 12 of 13 games played last month.
Ovi Odometer: Ovechkin’s seven goals give him 31 for the season and 926 for his career. Adding his 77 playoff goals to the mix and Ovi passed the 1,000 goal when one combines the totals. At his current scoring pace Ovi would finish the season with 34-33-34-35 goals and 929-30-31-32 for his career.
Matchups of the Month: The Capitals wrap up the home portion of their slate Sunday, April 12, when they host Pittsburgh. Will this be the last time we’ll see Ovi and Sidney Crosby together on the ice? And will the Caps still be in contention for what could be Ovechkin’s final home game in Washington?
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