Capitals bond with family skate ahead of Game 1 against Canadiens

ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Washington Capitals players were finishing their second consecutive hard day of practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on Sunday when those with children could see them starting to gather behind the bench area.

Soon after, left wing Alex Ovechkin was joined on the ice by his sons Sergei, 6, and Ilya, 4, along with defenseman John Carlson’s oldest son Lucca, 9, center Dylan Strome and his daughters Weslie, 3, and Emerson, 1, along with a host of others.

“I think this is the last day that we can spend time with the kids, skate with them,” Ovechkin said. “Tomorrow, it's Game 1, and everything's going to be on hockey.”

The Capitals open the Stanley Cup Playoffs with Game 1 of the Eastern Conference First Round against the Montreal Canadiens (40-31-11) at Capital One Arena on Monday (7 p.m. ET; MNMT, ESPN, SN, TVAS).

After finishing first in the Eastern Conference with 111 points, Washington (51-22-9) aspires to go on a long postseason run that would end with it winning the Stanley Cup for the first time since 2018.

So, there might not be a lot of opportunities for quality family time at or away from the rink in the coming weeks. Coach Spencer Carbery thought Easter Sunday was a good day for the Capitals to enjoy the family atmosphere that’s been prevalent around the team all season -- after they put in the work necessary to get ready for facing the Canadiens.

“I know this first-hand from our guys because I’ve been around them all year long,” Carbery said. “You can be an extremely intense competitor, an extremely hard worker, someone that takes your craft extremely seriously. You also can be a great family man. You also can enjoy your time at the rink and that is something that’s so important to not only our team specifically but our organization and the way that we want our culture to be here. We want players to feel as, yeah, we’re the ultimate competitors when the puck drops, and when we practice and when we train and when we watch film, everybody is dialed in and there’s an expectation and there’s a standard to meet.

“And when we have opportunities to spend time with our family and enjoy our time at the rink and let them be a part of it, we take advantage of those.”

The Capitals know they will need to be all business from the start of Game 1. Montreal went 7-1-2 in its last 10 games to claim the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference while Washington, which had little to play for as far as playoff positioning, went 4-7-1 in its final 12 games.

So, the Capitals will need to find a way to elevate their play to do something they haven’t since lifting the Cup in 2018 -- win a playoff series. Washington is 0-5 in first-round series since then, including being swept by the New York Rangers in the first round last season after missing the playoffs in 2023.

“It's super challenging,” defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk said of having success in the playoffs. “It's staying healthy, it's playing hard, it's competing night in and night out. It can be physically taxing, obviously, with how much each game you're going to expend and lay it on the line. It's two months if you can do it all.”

Carbery isn’t looking that far ahead.

“Maybe some coaches do it differently and plan this thing out and expect to go three rounds,” Carbery said. “I’m a Game 1 guy. We have a plan in place for a standpoint of scheduling and practices for what we're trying to accomplish. But my focus, and what I'm trying to get our players and our staff on the same page with, is playing well in the first game of this series."

It appears goalie Logan Thompson will be ready after missing the final seven games of the regular-season with an upper-body injury, but the Capitals will likely begin the series without forward Aliaksei Protas and defenseman Martin Fehervary. Protas skated lightly Sunday after missing the last six games of the regular season because of a skate cut on his left foot. Fehervary missed the regular-season finale against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday and didn’t practice the past two days because of a lower-body injury.

Whether either of those players can return during the series remains to be seen. Carbery has been tight-lipped about the injuries the past two days with the playoffs about to begin.

Defeating the Canadiens will be more difficult without Protas and Fehervary, and there will be more challenges that pop up as the series progresses and beyond that -- if the Capitals can advance.

“It's everything, all the small details, everything,” Ovechkin said of the keys to postseason success. “You can't choose one.”

That will be Washington’s all-consuming focus beginning Monday. It was already on their minds as they skated around the rink with their children Sunday.

“It's just spending time with the family. Extra day, it's a good thing,” Ovechkin said. “You can't be focusing too much the day before the game. Of course we have video. We have all the different things. But you can't forget, if you have an extra hour to spend with the kids on the ice, why not? I think it's a great thing.”