Facing elimination, Capitals look to rally against Hurricanes at home

Down 3-1 in their best-of-seven series against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Washington Capitals will be fighting for their playoff lives in Thursday’s Game 5 at Capital One Arena.

But Washington’s players say they aren’t thinking about winning three straight games to advance to the Eastern Conference finals.

They want to win one game three times. That’s a different proposition, Capitals players and coaches said Wednesday. 

“Start with one,” alternate captain Tom Wilson said after what could be Washington’s final practice of the season. “My mentality is you just wake up and you’re ready to leave it all out there. You just do the best you can.”

A disastrous trip to Raleigh, North Carolina, for Games 3 and 4 placed Washington in elimination territory. Any losses in the next three games would end a remarkable season that saw Alex Ovechkin set the NHL goals record while the Capitals led the Eastern Conference in wins. 

But a 3-1 deficit is often fatal. Only 32 teams have come back from that in NHL history. More than 90% of the time, the leading team finds another victory to move on to the next round. 

Capitals coach Spencer Carbery isn’t talking about those odds with his team. He’s focused on winning Thursday’s game. 

“We don’t look at it big picture-wise,” he said. “It’s just one. That’s the starting point: winning one hockey game.”

The Capitals have managed one win in this series, Game 2 at home.

And in the regular season, they won three straight wins eight times. Meanwhile, they dropped three games in a row just once. That recent history favors the Capitals. 

The same principle applies to the change of scenery. The series shifts back to Washington for Game 5.

More home cooking, Wilson reasoned, could help shift the energy. Carolina had a 31-9-1 record at home in the regular season, but a losing record on the road.

“I think it’ll change the momentum a little bit more in our favor,” he said. “We’re going to use the energy in our building to get us going. We’ll start with the first period and go from there.”

Carbery has led his team to an impressive 25-8-1 record after losses. That didn’t help the Capitals in Game 4, as they lost a second straight game in North Carolina. 

“We did a great job all year, finding ways to not let one loss pile into two and three. Obviously, we need that now,” forward Dylan Strome said. “Our backs are against the wall, of course, but we got a lot of belief in this team.” 

The process isn’t changed by the increased stakes, the coach said. Wednesday’s practice looked a bit different, though. 

The drills were the same, but the lineups had been overhauled.

Ovechkin was absent for a routine maintenance day as Carbery experimented with an array of new lines. Connor McMichael moved from the wing to center as Anthony Beauvillier moved to the top line. Aliaksei Protas joined the second line with Wilson and Pierre-Luc Dubois. 

“It’s no different than what we do for every single game, every morning as a staff. What puts us in the best position possible to have success that night?” Carbery said. “We evaluate every single position on the team and look at ways that we can put the team in the best position possible.”

The line combinations didn’t appear to worry players too much in the post-practice locker room. As they have all season, they shared smiles and jokes and emphasized how much they enjoy each other’s presence. 

A loss on Thursday night would dampen that atmosphere.

“We love each other,” Wilson said. “We just want to go out and leave it all out there.”