Home ice in the East just three wins away
As the NHL regular season moves toward the finish, the Capitals gear up for a final 10-game stretch with little left at stake.
Washington already has won the Southeast Division title and earned a playoff spot. Home-ice advantage in the Eastern Conference is just three wins away and it won’t take much more than that to wrap up home ice throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs. Even if the Caps go 4-6 to end the year, the Western Conference-leading Chicago Blackhawks would need to win nine of their last 11 games to steal the President’s Trophy. Phoenix, the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, would need to win all nine of its remaining games.
Washington’s worst stretch of the season was a 5-6 mark through 11 games in December and early January. But seven games during that stretch were on the road. The Caps finish with seven of 10 games at Verizon Center, including one against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
So what exactly are they playing for?
“We had a stretch like this last year where maybe the last 10 or 12 games in the standings didn’t mean all that much and we had a very mediocre record,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters Monday. “We want to go into the playoffs as strong as we are in the best of times.”
Also important to players, of course, is ice time. With 15 forwards and eight defensemen on the roster there is a serious fight for spots in Boudreau’s playoff lineup. Each game it appears that goalie Jose Theodore is securing his position as the playoff starter over rookie Semyon Varlamov. Theodore has a 16-0-2 record since Jan. 13 with a 2.40 goals-against average and a .927 save percentage.
And there’s always the race for individual trophies. Alex Ovechkin scored on Saturday against Tampa Bay in his first game back from a two-game suspension. Can he win a third consecutive Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player? Or does Ovechkin need to distance himself from contenders Sidney Crosby and Henrik Sedin to make up for any ill will his two suspensions this season might generate from Professional Hockey Writers Association voters? For now, Ovechkin has 97 points — two ahead of Sedin — and is tied with Crosby with 45 goals.
