Ryan Leonard<\/a>. \u201cI think everyone in this group, you look to the left and right of you, you trust that guy. And you know they\u2019re going to give 110 percent, each and every night and each shift. We have a great brotherhood in this locker room, and there\u2019s no quit.\u201d<\/p>\nConnor McMichael attributed that resiliency to the Capitals\u2019 veterans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our leaders drive the bus,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously Willy (Tom Wilson), and O (Alex Ovechkin), and Stromer (Strome), and Roysie (Matt Roy). Those guys have really picked up the slack and really dragged us into the fight. I think we\u2019re just prepared every game and [know] it\u2019s going to be a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head coach Spencer Carbery praised that locker room camaraderie before citing the team\u2019s competitiveness as another major factor \u2014 something that\u2019s become more critical in the comedown from last season\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone wants to win in this league, but there\u2019s there\u2019s a competitive juice that, can you get into one more notch, and I felt like a lot through this year, our group has continued to do,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cWhen it\u2019s looked really dark \u2014 and \u2018Hm, this isn\u2019t a good situation,\u2019 or \u2018That wasn\u2019t a great performance. Let\u2019s see what this game looks like,\u2019 they respond, and tonight was no different.\u201d<\/p>\n
The out-of-town scoreboard has also given the Capitals a huge boost, with losses from the New York Islanders and Columbus Blue Jackets both helping Washington on Saturday. Capitals players have taken a wide variety of approaches when it comes to scoreboard watching: Strome paid close attention to the other games in the Eastern Conference, while Leonard didn\u2019t know the results until reporters told him postgame.<\/p>\n
McMichael sat somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the game, [I wasn\u2019t watching] at all, but honestly the first thing I do after the game is check,\u201d he said. \u201cI just heard that the Isles and Columbus lost. So it\u2019s out of our control, but that\u2019s definitely nice to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carbery paid enough attention to know where the Capitals stood, but he told reporters the out-of-town help didn\u2019t affect his approach to the Capitals\u2019 odds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I\u2019m not going to sit here and say that I haven\u2019t looked at the standings in the last 24 hours, but it\u2019s irrelevant if we\u2019re not getting two points and we\u2019re not playing well and we\u2019re not winning hockey games,\u201d he said. \u201cSo tonight is a huge two points for our group, and we\u2019re going to get on the road, and we\u2019re going to try to replicate a lot of the things that we did tonight in Madison Square.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many of the Capitals, the playoff chase is bringing back memories of the 2023-24 season, when Washington made an improbable run to clinch a playoff spot in Game 82. Much like they did that year, Capitals players are hoping to overcome a disappointing record in the middle of the season to fight their way back into a spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just obviously not happy with the way December and January went, our two worst months. We put ourselves behind the eight ball, and we\u2019ve just been clawing, it feels like,\u201d Strome said. \u201cSimilar to two years ago, I guess. It feels like if we [lost] that game in Buffalo three weeks ago, it feels like our season\u2019s over, and we just consistently find a way.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve obviously got some help around the league. So, you can chalk it up to whatever. But we found a way to win four of the last five and pull ourselves right back into this. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The schedule won\u2019t make the Capitals\u2019 job any easier: after finishing their back-to-back against the New York Rangers on Sunday, they\u2019ll have just one more home game in the regular season\u2014the second half of yet another back-to-back against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The odds are still slim. But even with the end of the season chasing the Capitals down, they\u2019re still in the running.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, DC \u2014 The 2025-26 Washington Capitals aren\u2019t dead yet. Two days after a 7-3 loss to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,4,1108],"class_list":{"0":"post-541495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sabres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116350263220952885","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541495","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=541495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}