A year after eking their way into the 2024 NHL Playoffs, the Washington Capitals are in a far different spot this spring. While last year’s Caps made the postseason by the skin of their teeth, battling to secure a spot through Game 82, this year’s team is coming in as the top seed in the East and clinched a playoff spot a month ago.
That lack of late-season pressure arguably showed on the scoreboard as Washington dropped eight of its last 12 games to close out the regular season. But with the stakes higher than they’ve been all year, the Capitals are confident they’ll have their foot back on the gas when they take on the Montreal Canadiens in Game 1.
“I’m pretty sure as soon as the puck drops, everybody going to be in motivation mode and beast mode,” Alex Ovechkin said Saturday.
Last season’s Capitals started playing do-or-die hockey long before the playoffs began, squeaking into the second wild-card spot in the final game of the regular season. After pushing so hard to get to the postseason, however, the injury-laden Capitals didn’t muster much of a fight against the New York Rangers and lost in a sweep.
This time, the Caps were comfortably in a playoff position nearly all season. After an offseason overhaul, the 2024-25 they became one of the strongest teams in the NHL, going 47-15-8 in their first 70 games and becoming the first in the league to clinch on March 20.
Charlie Lindgren, whose heroics were largely responsible for getting his team to the 2024 postseason, remarked on the sharp contrast between the two campaigns and acknowledged that the end of the regular season this year lacked the gravity it had last April.
“It felt way different,” he said. “Way different. As we all know, last year, it was the last 15, 20 games. Every game felt like life or death. This year, we knew where we were at. We were in a pretty comfortable spot, standings-wise. And so it definitely was a different feeling. I think we probably all realistically saw that at times with the product on the ice. Maybe we didn’t have that urgency that maybe we had last year to end the season.”
With a comfortable lead in the Eastern Conference, the Caps spent much of the last few months with their eyes on another goal entirely as Alex Ovechkin drew closer and closer to the all-time goals record. They tried to shift focus once Ovechkin hit 895 but were largely unsuccessful, going 2-3-0 after the record-breaking game and getting outscored 21-11 over that span.
Still, by that point the Caps had already clinched a playoff spot and had little left to fight for, resting several key figures in the final games of the regular season. Players were confident that the playoffs would bring plenty of energy as they tried to flip the switch back to their strong play earlier in the campaign.
“Playoffs are different than the regular season, you know?” Pierre-Luc Dubois said. “We can have a meeting and pretend we’re as desperate as a team trying to struggle their way in — the reality is it’s not the same thing. You can pretend all you want, but it’s not. Now, it is. Now it’s the real thing. Motivation is going to be high, attention to detail and everything. We’re going to be ready.”
Spencer Carbery concurred.
“Once playoffs start, there’s not a player in the league on these teams that isn’t highly, highly motivated and excited to play playoff hockey,” he said. “Every single guy is chomping at the bit, fired up. So I don’t have any reservations about our group being able to turn it on and be excited about playing in the playoffs.
“Now, you’ve got to execute through that. You’ve got to play well through that. You’ve got to get to your game. You’ve got to do a lot of things in a series to have success, and so those are two different things. You can turn it on and still not have success. That’ll be the key for us.”
The Capitals surprised the hockey world with their dominant performance this year before beginning to flounder in their final regular-season games. With Game 1 just around the corner, however, neither the Caps’ sins nor their virtues will hold weight as they pursue a Stanley Cup championship for the second time in franchise history.
“We had a great regular season, did a lot of good things over six months, and now that doesn’t mean a thing,” Carbery said. “The guys know that and understand that it’s a brand new year, a brand new season, playing against a real good hockey team that’s had a great finish in their season, since the 4 Nations break has played real well and found their way into the playoffs, has a ton of momentum. So we’re excited to get going in the playoffs.”
