{"id":540669,"date":"2026-04-04T18:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540669\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T18:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:01:11","slug":"logan-thompson-to-make-10th-straight-start-against-sabres-logans-earned-the-opportunity-to-play-in-these-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540669\/","title":{"rendered":"Logan Thompson to make 10th straight start against Sabres: \u2018Logan\u2019s earned the opportunity to play in these games\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON, VA \u2014 The Washington Capitals are leaning hard on Logan Thompson<\/a> in their last-ditch run at a playoff spot.<\/p>\n

Thompson will take the net once again against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night, getting the start for the 10th game in a row. Dating back to March 3, Thompson has played in 13 of Washington\u2019s last 14 games, with Charlie Lindgren\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0only start coming on the second half of a back-to-back against Buffalo on March 12.<\/p>\n

The Capitals have a record of 5-2-2 over Thompson\u2019s 10-game starting streak and currently sit three points out of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. Head coach Spencer Carbery acknowledged that Thompson\u2019s heavy workload wasn\u2019t optimal, but maintained that playing him gave the Caps their best chance to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cLogan\u2019s earned the opportunity to play in these games,\u201d Carbery said after Saturday\u2019s morning skate. \u201cThat\u2019s as simply put as I can phrase it. He\u2019s earned the opportunity to play in as close as you\u2019re getting to do-or-die situations for our team.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so, yeah, it\u2019s not ideal him playing this many games in a row. It\u2019s not ideal that Chucky hasn\u2019t played in a while. I don\u2019t like that. I know \u2014 he\u2019s an unbelievable teammate, but deep down he wants to play games. And even for management of fatigue and whatnot, it\u2019s not ideal. But at the same time, this is all hands on deck, and we have to find a way to get two points tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson has been one of the Capitals\u2019 best players this season and is arguably the reason they remain, however marginally, in the playoff race. He\u2019s posted a 27-21-6 record with a .909 save percentage and a 2.53 goals-against average, earning him a spot on Canada\u2019s Olympic team and potentially putting him in the Vezina Trophy conversation. Per MoneyPuck<\/a>, his 24.6 goals saved above expected ranks third in the NHL, though it took a hit in a 7-3 loss to New Jersey on Thursday that saw Thompson allow 3.6 goals above expected.<\/p>\n

The Capitals have seen an uptick in goals against over the last two weeks, allowing three or more goals in their last six games, but Carbery attributed that to defensive breakdowns rather than poor goaltending.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re giving up more chances,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cSo what [do I] attribute that to? There\u2019s a lot of things that we\u2019ve looked at. There\u2019s no doubt, and we\u2019re way past this, but John (Carlson) and Nic Dowd were a big part in that. They were two of our best defensive players, and so losing those two guys, I\u2019ve noticed just a little bit more of an uptick in the chances that we\u2019re giving up, and some defensive scenarios that we\u2019re seeing too many times, where we would like to see maybe five or six less of those a game. So we\u2019ve got to do a better job\u2026We\u2019ve got to tighten it up a bit defensively. No doubt we\u2019re working on that every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

After facing the Sabres on Saturday, the Capitals will have a quick turnaround before playing the New York Rangers on Sunday. Though Thompson and Lindgren have split starts for every back-to-back this season so far, Carbery didn\u2019t rule out the possibility that Thompson could play two nights in a row.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll make that decision,\u201d he said. \u201cDepending on anything unforeseen, I\u2019m not going to commit to anything, but usually Chucky would start in that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carbery previously played Clay Stevenson in back-to-back games on February 2 and 3, but only did so after a series of injuries left the Capitals without either of their regular NHL goaltenders. Stevenson played ahead of Garin Bjorklund, who has not made his NHL debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, VA \u2014 The Washington Capitals are leaning hard on Logan Thompson in their last-ditch run at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5114],"tags":[191,5,4,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-540669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-capitals","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-washington","12":"tag-washington-capitals","13":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116347750957822365","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}