Nearly three-quarters of the way through the 2024-25 season, the Washington Capitals recorded their first three-game losing streak all year when they fell 3-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning Saturday afternoon.
The Capitals came out of the 4 Nations Face-Off break hot, beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 8-3 and the Edmonton Oilers 7-3, but have since struggled to find their footing, losing to the Calgary Flames and St. Louis Blues before facing Tampa for a weekend matinee. They have not held a lead at any point during the three-game stretch.
Though they couldn’t find the win, head coach Spencer Carbery felt more optimistic about his team’s play Saturday.
“I thought it was a good hockey game,” he said. “Checking-wise, I thought we did enough to win the game. I thought what we limited them to — I didn’t think there was much either way. So I thought it was pretty tight out there. I thought maybe the only other thing, [we needed to be] just a little bit better with the puck. And to be able to make a play, to finish some of those [chances] earlier than the one late in the game, would be my only real complaint.
“Special teams plays a huge part, but they’re as good a team as there is in this league, without a doubt…Just needed to make a few more plays, whether that was on special teams, whether it was in net, or whether it was finishing the scoring opportunity, and that was the difference.”
Washington spent much of the first period down a man, taking three penalties in a 15-minute span. Tampa forward Mitchell Chaffee struck on the third opportunity and the Lightning held the lead for the remainder of the night.
Matt Roy pointed to the rough start as the primary reason for the loss, noting the Caps improved in the second and third periods.
“Give up a couple early, so kind of chasing the game but I still thought we did a lot of good things,” he said. “We had a lot of good chances, just needed to find a way to bury them and just find a way to at least tie it or go from there.”
Asked if he saw a pattern connecting the three losses, Roy acknowledged some issues with the team’s execution but highlighted that they were largely on the right path.
“Maybe just a little sloppy here and there,” he said. “Again, we have our chances. We just need to find a way to stick with it and just keep going.”
This year’s Capitals have regularly bounced back after bad games — they have a record of 16-4-1 in games following a loss and have just four multi-game losing streaks all season — so they’re not too worried just yet. Tom Wilson was hesitant even to say the team was on a skid, though he acknowledged something would need to change.
“Call it a skid if you want — I mean it’s three games,” he said. “We don’t like it, but we’ve had a consistent year, so there’s going to be ups and downs. We’re not panicking right now. We love the group in here, and just got to find a way to get back on track. We’re doing good things, just sometimes you lose a few in a row, and you’ve got to correct it as quick as possible.”
Though the Winnipeg Jets now have a three-point lead over Washington for first place in the overall NHL standings, the Capitals are still eight points ahead of the next-place Toronto Maple Leafs in the Eastern Conference. The losing streak was cause for some worry, Carbery said, but not yet an emergency.
“I mean, it’s not ideal, especially with the timing of where we’re at this season, the teams that we’re playing against. I would say it’s concerning; I wouldn’t say that I’m hitting the panic button by any stretch. We’ve lost three games against three teams that are gearing up. It’s not ideal — it doesn’t look good on our team, especially going into the trade deadline.”
Carbery argued that the recent bumps in the road may have some upside — after smooth sailing for much of the season, a losing skid could be a proving ground ahead of the playoffs.
“We’re going to have to get it figured out, but adversity and going through this might not be a bad thing for our group to find out what we’re made of going into the last final stretch” he said. “So it’s good because now we’ll be able to use this as a gut check time for our group.”
Wilson, for one, thinks the Capitals are up to the challenge.
“(In) this league, you’ve got to be consistent,” he said. “You can’t drop too many in a row. A sign of a good team is bouncing back. I think the effort was there. I think the execution, for the most part, was there tonight. Not our worst game, but it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to make sure we take the next one…
“We’ve got an experienced group in here, so there’s going to be no panic, but I think there’s just going to be a little looking at each other and saying, ‘Let’s go. We’ve got to get the next one and move forward from there and put this in the rearview.’”
