Nov. 24 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Columbus Blue Jackets (11-8-3)
Washington Capitals (11-9-2)
The Capitals’ four-game homestand continues Monday night when the Columbus Blue Jackets make their way into town for a Metropolitan Division matchup. Washington’s November schedule is almost evenly split with Western Conference, Atlantic and Metro Division foes, and the Jackets are the fourth of five different Metro opponents the Caps will face this month.
Washington will be looking to rebound from Saturday’s 5-3 loss to the Lightning, but the Caps have also picked up a point in five of their last seven games (4-2-1).
In Saturday night’s homestand opener, Washington jumped out to a 1-0 lead over Tampa Bay on Justin Sourdif’s third goal of the season at 1:06 of the first. It marked the fourth time in as many games the Caps netted the game’s opening salvo ahead of the four-minute mark of the first frame.
Ninety-three seconds later, the Caps went on the game’s first power play, a golden opportunity to double their lead early in the game against a Lightning team that elected to rest star goaltender Andrej Vasilevskiy and was playing without a pair of injured top four defensemen in Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh.
Alas, the Caps’ power play unit was nicked for a Brandon Hagel shorthanded goal a mere 14 seconds into the man advantage. Hagel’s goal came less than two minutes after Sourdif’s game-opening marker, the fifth time in three games Washington has surrendered a goal against less than two minutes after scoring a goal of its own.
“I think everybody in this room knows how big the shift is after a goal, whether it's getting scored on or scoring,” says Caps winger Ethen Frank. “And so I think we just take that almost a little personal and just go out there with a little vengeance after we score, and just go try and get another one right away.”
Things got worse for Washington when Tampa Bay’s Oliver Bjorkstrand struck on the Lightning’s first power play of the night, and the Bolts followed with even-strength goals from Hagel and Nikita Kucherov before the end of the period. At that point, Caps coach Spencer Carbery pulled starting goaltender Logan Thompson for Charlie Lindgren, after the former had been dented for four goals against on six shots in 18:19 in the crease.
“Just momentum,” says Carbery when asked about pulling Thompson. “He gave up four in the first period, so it’s just getting him out of there and giving Chucky the opportunity.”
Last season, both Thompson and Lindgren had one start each that they didn’t finish because of an injury. Saturday’s game marked the first time a Washington goaltender was pulled for reasons other than injury since an April 2, 2024 game in Buffalo. Lindgren yielded to Darcy Kuemper in the third period of that contest after giving up six goals on 31 shots. Kuemper finished the game with four saves on as many shots in 14:19 of work, in what was a 6-2 loss for the Caps.
Lindgren shut the door until late in the third period of Saturday’s game against the Lightning, giving the Caps a chance to come back against a Lightning team that became even more depleted as the game wore on; the Bolts lost the services of forwards Kucherov and Brayden Point as well. Washington mounted a spirited comeback, but it fell a couple goals short.
Historically speaking, the Caps had roughly a one in 24 chance of coming back to win Saturday’s game once they surrendered four goals in the first. There are 72 previous occurrences of the Caps giving up as many as four goals in the first frame of a game, and they managed to win three of those contests, the most recent of which was a 6-4 victory over the Blues in St. Louis on Oct. 26, 1996 at Kiel Center.
On the plus side of the ledger, Caps defenseman Jakob Chychrun had a goal and an assist in Saturday’s game, extending his career best point streak to seven games (three goals, six assists). With six goals on the season, Chychrun trails only New York Islanders rookie Matthew Schaefer (seven) for most goals by a blueliner this season.
Chychrun and John Carlson each have 19 points on the season to date; they’re tied for sixth in scoring among all NHL defensemen. Chychrun’s plus-12 rating is tied for seventh-best among all blueliners.
The Caps conducted a Sunday morning practice in preparation of Monday’s match with Columbus. One of focal points of Sunday’s session is the sagging power play, which was 0-for-6 with a shorthanded goal against and a fallow – in terms of red lights – stretch of 68 seconds of a two-man advantage in Saturday’s loss.
In a season in which the Eastern Conference standings are tighter than an NHL conference has ever been at this juncture, the Caps have left some standings points on the table that could have been garnered with a timely power-play goal in several of their losses.
With both Connor McMichael and Tom Wilson taking a maintenance day on Sunday, we don’t have a precise picture of what the extra man units might look like on Monday against the Jackets, but it does appear as though Carlson and Chychrun will be split up to have one of them quarterbacking each of the two units.
“You want to be patient with – whether it’s line combinations, power play combinations, [defense] pairs – and give it time to see what it can become and so chemistry can be created,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “Sometimes that comes – or the majority of the time that comes – with some growing pains. But then it gets to a certain point where as a coach, I need to make a decision of what makes sense for our hockey team. And when it repeatedly isn’t going well, then we need to make adjustments and find ways to improve it. One of the ways you can do that is by changing the personnel.”
When last the Caps and Jackets met in Columbus on Oct. 24, Washington broke open a 0-0 game late in the second period with three goals – from Carlson in the second, and Alex Ovechkin and Justin Sourdif early in the third – in less than five minutes of playing time. A stellar 34-save game from Logan Thompson in goal kept the game even until the offense could find its footing.
The Caps were also able to assertively put that game away with a pair of late power-play goals from Wilson and McMichael. Six different Caps picked up points on those two late extra-man tallies.
Like Washington, Columbus finds itself in the bottom half of the tightly packed Metro standings, attaching a bit more importance to Monday’s meeting. Also similar to the Caps, the Jackets have been trying to stack some wins following a less than fruitful stretch. Columbus was sitting at 7-4-0 with a four-game winning streak on the morning of Nov. 2, but it has gone 4-4-3 since.
Most recently, the Jackets dropped a 4-3 overtime decision to Detroit on home ice Saturday afternoon. Columbus carried a 3-1 lead into the back half of the final period, only to fall on three unanswered Red Wings tallies, culminating with Alex DeBrincat’s game-winner in overtime.
