As players from the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Finland gathered for the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off, the Washington Capitals were one of just two teams without a representative at the tournament. Several members of the team, including Logan Thompson, Tom Wilson, and John Carlson attracted buzz as potential picks for their respective countries, but all were snubbed from the final rosters, instead taking time away from the game during the league’s 12-day pause.
That time off could prove a boon for the Capitals as they head into the final third of the season — while many of their opponents’ biggest stars spent the break playing high-intensity games, the Caps had more than a week to rest amid an otherwise unrelenting 82-game campaign.
“Those guys are playing some big games and we’re not,” Jakob Chychrun said. “Rest is a weapon throughout the long season. Hopefully we can use it to our advantage and come out fresh. So I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”
Chychrun felt the rest pay off when he hit the ice for the Capitals’ first practice back on Wednesday, and he wasn’t the only one who noticed.
“I feel really good,” he said after the skate. “You never know how you’re going to feel after that much time off the ice. Today was a great skate. I felt a lot better than I thought.”
“Oh my god, he was flying,” Alex Ovechkin piped up from a neighboring stall. “Bands, he was flying. Jesus.”
While Tom Wilson was disappointed not to be playing for Team Canada — thinking ‘God, I want to be playing in that game’ when watching Saturday’s USA-Canada game — he saw a potential silver lining in the time off, especially further into the season. In the short term, however, he warned that the high of the tournament could give momentum to the Capitals’ opponents.
“I don’t know right away if it’ll help,” Wilson said. “I think it might be something down the road, in a month or two. It’s nice to get a break right now. For them, you could look at it the other way. They’re still dialed in. They’re still playing hockey. They’re going to be sharp. They’re not going to have any rust. So we’ve got to be ready for that right out of the gate. But I think it’ll pay dividends down the line, having a few days off to let the body repair itself.”
Spencer Carbery was less certain when asked if the time off would be a benefit or a hinderance. The last best-on-best men’s hockey games came during a pre-season tournament at the World Cup of Hockey nearly a decade ago — Carbery noted there wasn’t much data to draw from on how the tournament would affect players.
“I’m not sure [if it will help us],” Carbery said when asked about the rest. “I hope so. That’s what would be the argument from our perspective and our side, that the utilization of the rest, but I’ve heard some differing opinions. I honestly don’t know the answer because I haven’t necessarily monitored guys coming back after playing in these type of tournaments and the short turnaround, potentially, for guys.
“And then there’s a lot that goes into play, right? It’s not just, ‘Okay, someone that played big minutes in the tournament, played all the way to the final game.’ Veteran player versus young player. Does a young player come back and feel a little bit of extra juice because they were just playing against the best players in the world? I don’t know. I think you could look at a case study on all the different players, but hopefully, I can just speak for us, is we utilize the break and we look really good and fresh and we use it to our advantage and use the rest to our advantage.”
Washington has an opportunity to rack up points if the team can maintain its previous momentum and benefit from the time off. Heading into the break, the Capitals sat a point behind the Winnipeg Jets for first in the standings and had a nine-point cushion atop the Eastern Conference. They ended on a relatively high note, too — they have gone 11-1-6 since January 1 and hold a six-game point streak. Tankathon rates Washington’s remaining schedule as the fifth-easiest in the league.
After returning to DC, the Capitals have a rare three-day window to practice before returning to play this weekend. Carbery told reporters Wednesday afternoon that his players were in a good mood and eager to get back out on the ice.
“There was so much energy this morning,” he said. “Usually you can tell when I walk into the morning meeting whether it’s going to be a day of high energy [or] low, and it was high energy this morning, which is great….When guys are hungry and looking forward to coming back, that’s exactly objective A, to have them feeling that way. So seems like morale is in a good spot right now.”
The Caps will play their first games back against some of Team Canada’s star players, facing Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday and Connor McDavid’s Edmonton Oilers Sunday. Wilson emphasized the need to hit the ground running.
“It’s kind of sink or swim,” he said. “I think you come in and you’ve got to be extremely focused. You’ve got to be ready to work. You can’t tiptoe into it. You’ve got to be ready for it to be hard because after a break like that, there’s nothing you can do to make sure you’re up to game speed except come back and put in the work and be ready.
“It’s a pretty veteran group in here. We’ve had breaks over the course of our careers before and you know you just have to be extra detailed and extra focused in the first couple of games back.”
