Two significant trips helped Washington rebound
Just 40 days ago, Capitals right wing Mike Knuble stood in front of his locker-room stall at Verizon Center and pondered an upcoming five-game road trip.
His team had been soundly beaten at home by the Los Angeles Kings that Feb. 12 afternoon and booed off the ice after an underwhelming effort. The season could go completely downhill on the road trip, Knuble admitted. Despite standing in sixth place in the Eastern Conference at the time, Washington was just eight points from falling out of a Stanley Cup playoff position completely.
A players-only meeting preceded a long flight to the West Coast to start the trip. A sense of urgency loomed. One way or the other, Knuble expected that week on the road to define the direction of a team whose fortunes had risen and plunged like a chaotic stock.
Washington won three of the five games on that trip in February. It has won three of four on its current six-game swing away from home. All told, the Caps are 14-4 since that loss to the Kings. They clinched a playoff spot with a win at Philadelphia on Tuesday and have wrested control of the Southeast Division from the Tampa Bay Lightning with just eight games left in the regular season.
| Caps notes |
| » Washington left wing Alex Ovechkin (undisclosed injury) told reporters at Kettler Iceplex on Wednesday that he expects to return to action sometime in the next five to seven days. |
| » Center Jason Arnott (undisclosed injury) is also healing for the Stanley Cup playoffs but offered reporters no timetable for his return to the ice. |
| » The Caps next play at Ottawa on Friday night before heading directly to Montreal for a game Saturday. That will be the last of six consecutive games away from Verizon Center. |
“We have had a lot of wins in our past stretch,” Knuble said. “But we want to keep that going. There’s always room for improvement.”
Washington (43-21-10, 96 points) is now seven points ahead of Tampa Bay (39-23-11, 89 points) for the Southeast Division lead. Things didn’t look so rosy at the beginning of the month, however. Before play on March 1 — the day after the NHL’s trade deadline — the Lightning had a five-point lead over the Caps and had been on top of the division since Dec. 30. Since then Washington has turned on the afterburners at 10-1, while Tampa Bay has struggled to a 2-5-4 mark.
“December 1 we were first overall [in the NHL], so I’m not marveling,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said after the Philadelphia victory. “We had an eight-game stretch where we lost, but I bet you don’t know how we lost or the number of games we lost by one [goal]. I think every team has gone through that except for Vancouver this year. … I knew that we would fight until the end.”
