The Washington Capitals will be back in action against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night. The matchup at New Jersey’s Prudential Center will be the team’s first after the NHL’s three-day holiday break.

Due to that break and CBA regulations, the Capitals were forced to fly into Newark on the day of the game, an unusual scheduling quirk. Head coach Spencer Carbery spoke pregame about the challenges day-of travel may present to his team, and about his unique experience with a situation surrounding a prior December 27 game.

“Well, I’ll tell you something I did learn in my previous organization,” Carbery said, smiling. “You do not leave the day before, even if the players want to. When they say travel day of, they mean travel day of.”

While serving as an assistant coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 2022-23 season, Carbery and the rest of the Leafs jointly decided to leave for a game in St. Louis on the night of December 26, rather than travel on the day of their game against the Blues. The NHL took exception to the CBA violation and fined the club $100,000.

The Leafs did go on to win the game 5-4 in overtime. While the Capitals didn’t fly the night before, the hope is that Carbery’s previous experience will help guide the team to just their third win in their last 10 games.

“I think it’s the same for everybody,” Carbery said. “You’re coming back, guys are flying in, getting back from certain spots, from back home. It’s a congested 24 hours, but everybody’s in the same boat. For us, it’s a little bit more challenging with the day of travel, but it’s an hour-long flight, and whether you woke up and drove to the rink or drove to the airport and sat on an airplane for an hour, it’s not that drastic a difference.

“It’s just about who can get back up to speed and get themselves into game mode, and that’s what we’ll try to do tonight. An important game on the road against a team we’re neck and neck with. We know this team very, very well. And this stretch of our season, like I said the other night, it’s huge.”

Saturday night’s game is the first of 22 games that the Capitals will play over the next 41 days leading up to the NHL’s Olympic break. Exactly half of those games will come against teams that currently occupy playoff positions.

While the Devils are not one of those teams, they did recently get superstar center Jack Hughes back from a long-term injury, and he scored in his return game last weekend. In their lone prior meeting this season, the Devils secured a 3-2 shootout victory over the Capitals at Capital One Arena on November 15.

To get his team ready for the big test, Carbery had them take their morning skate a little more seriously than usual, with the players spending a little extra time on the ice.

“We went a little bit longer,” Carbery said. “Just did a couple extra things to shake off the rust a little bit, handle a few more pucks for guys in different situations. When you’re off for three days, you can’t go crazy here in a morning skate, but you also want to do everything you can to set the group up for success.

“Going an extra five minutes isn’t that big of an adjustment, but for them to be able to move the puck around and face some situations having been off for three-plus days, you hope that it will help us when the game starts.”

Puck drop for the Metropolitan Division showdown is set for 7 pm.