Nov. 30 vs. New York Islanders at UBS Arena
Time: 1:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
New York Islanders (10-10-3)
Washington Capitals (14-9-2)
Sunday afternoon in New York, the Caps will conclude the November portion of their 2025-26 schedule and begin a weeklong four-game road trip with a matinee match against the Islanders. Sunday’s game is the third of four meetings between the Metro Division rivals this season; the Caps and Isles will finish up their season series on Feb. 2 in Washington.
As they embark on this grueling trip of four games in six days – with three of them in four nights on the opposite coast – the Caps are as hot as they’ve been all season; they’re 6-1-1 in their last eight games as they board the bird to New York. They’re also three points from the Metropolitan Division’s penthouse perch and three points from its windowless basement, so they – like the rest of the teams in the division and in the Eastern Conference – can’t afford to take their collective foot off the gas pedal.
Washington put a bow on a four-game homestand with a 4-2 comeback win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Black Friday. Down 2-1 in the back half of the third period, the Caps got a couple of key puck retrievals to keep play alive in the offensive zone, a couple of alert and well-executed plays, and perfect finishes from Anthony Beauvillier on the tying tally and Jakob Chychrun on the game-winner with just under four minutes remaining.
Chychrun’s goal extended his career high point streak to 10 straight games (seven goals, six assists), tying the Washington franchise record held by Robert Picard (1978-79) and Al Iafrate (1992-93).
The Capitals also got yet another stellar goaltending effort from Logan Thompson, who slammed the door closed after Toronto went up 2-0 in the third minute of the second period. Thompson’s teammates kept the Isles from registering a shot for more than 14 minutes – the last dozen minutes of the second period and a short stretch early in the third – but almost everything Thompson faced in the third seemed to be a high danger chance off the stick of a threatening top six forward.
Thompson made 20 saves to notch his 10th victory of the season – tied for fifth in the NHL – including a dozen mostly difficult ones in the third period.
“You’ve got to tip your hat to their goalie,” says Thompson of the Leafs. “I thought Joseph Woll was excellent for them, and I thought it was a perfect team game from us. We were generating a lot of chances, and I thought he was really keeping them in it, and like I said, you can tip your hat to him.
“And credit to the guys. We stuck to the game plan, just had to keep doing the right things, not cheat, and it worked out tonight. I think that's overall very confident for the group to just believe in ourselves and stick to it.”
Washington defeated Woll for the first time; he entered the game with a 4-0-0 career mark against the Capitals.
The Caps finished the homestand 3-1-0 and they went 6-1-1 in their eight November home games. After starting the season 6-2-0 in their first eight, the Caps hit the rumble strips for a spell; they went 2-6-1 in their next nine. This last strong stretch of eight games sends them on the road with some momentum on what is bound to be a difficult – and condensed – trip against formidable foes.
“It was critical,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of the team’s recent stretch. “And our guys, I give them a ton of credit, because the urgency level [was where it needed to be]. As you go through this, everybody wants to win, everybody’s playing hard, everybody’s trying to get points. It’s the NHL, so there’s no team that’s not in the situation that we’re in.
“But because of the start that we had, after we were 6-2-0, whatever we were in that middle, whatever it was – let’s call it game eight to game 18 or 17, something like that – it has created some urgency inside of our group of, ‘We’ve got to get this thing going.’
“They’re not dummies; they see the Eastern Conference, and it is a different beast this year. So if you don’t get your game in order quickly and accumulate points and get playing at a high level – even though it’s November, or early December as it’s about to [be] – you can fall behind quickly. And now all of a sudden, you’re looking up and you’ve got 12 teams in front you. That’s a problem.
“I give our guys, kudos to them to put this stretch together and play the way that we have, because it’s not only the results, but I feel like our game is in a really good spot. We’re playing well, we’re defending well, we’re controlling possession, We’re in the offensive zone, we’re generating. We’re doing a lot of winning things, doing a lot of things that take care of the end result.”
After winning each of their first three road games of the season, the Caps have gone 2-4-1 in their last seven on the road. They have won two of their last three away from DC, doing so in tough buildings in Carolina and Montreal, respectively.
The Islanders are in the midst of a seven-game homestand, and after Friday’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Flyers on Friday night, New York is 1-2-1 on the homestand to date. Prior to their current homestand, the Isles shot up the Metro standings with a highly successful seven-game road trip in which they went 6-1-0, losing only to the Avalanche in Colorado.
More damaging than Friday’s loss to the Flyers was the loss of top six winger Kyle Palmieri, who suffered a torn ACL in the game and will be lost for 6-8 months. As he was hobbling his way to the bench to get down the tunnel to be examined, Palmieri helped set up New York’s first goal of the game, trimming the Philly lead to 3-1.
New York eked out a point by forcing overtime, only to lose in the shootout.
The Caps and Islanders split a pair of October meetings. Washington won a 4-2 decision here on Oct. 11 in the second game of the season for both teams, and the Isles downed the Caps in Washington nearly three weeks later, 3-1 on Halloween night.
