{"id":546336,"date":"2026-04-07T22:54:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/546336\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T22:54:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:54:31","slug":"capitals-face-maple-leafs-clinging-to-fading-playoff-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/546336\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitals face Maple Leafs clinging to fading playoff hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Capitals<\/a> will try to keep their slim playoff hopes alive when they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

With four games remaining in the regular season, Washington (39-30-9, 87 points) trails three teams in the race for third place in the Metropolitan Division and four teams for the second and final wild card in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

The Maple Leafs (32-31-14, 78 points) have been eliminated from playoff contention and return home after losing three of four on a road swing.<\/p>\n

Washington is coming off a weekend that saw their chances soar and then plummet in a span of 24 hours.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the Capitals beat the visiting Buffalo Sabres 6-2 in one of their most impressive wins of the season to move within one point of the second wild-card spot after an 8-3-2 stretch. On Sunday, they were routed 8-1 on the road by the last-place New York Rangers.<\/p>\n

Connor McMichael scored for the Capitals and Charlie Lindgren allowed all eight goals on 33 shots in his first start since March 12.<\/p>\n

“It’s frustrating because we fought as hard as we have to get back into this spot where we’re within striking distance,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “Does it take a lot of you? No doubt. But these are big games, and unfortunately, we just didn’t have any gas tonight.”<\/p>\n

Washington will have a new face in the lineup Wednesday as Ilya Protas makes his NHL debut. The 19-year-old has recorded a team-high 62 points (28 goals, 34 assists) in 66 games with Hershey of the American Hockey League (AHL) this season.<\/p>\n

Protas leads AHL rookies in points and ranks second in goals among first-year players. The forward was Washington’s third-round pick (75th overall) in the 2024 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n

“It’s just unbelievable,” Ilya Protas said Tuesday of his promotion. “I couldn’t believe it for a second and I was shaky for a bit. Special for sure and can’t describe it. I can’t wait for tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

Protas will center a line between his brother, Aliaksei, and Tom Wilson.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the Maple Leafs took the Los Angeles Kings to overtime before losing 7-6. It was the first time Toronto lost when scoring at least six goals since April 5, 2022, also in a 7-6 overtime loss that came against the Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n

Matthew Knies had two goals with two assists and John Tavares had a goal and two assists for the Maple Leafs. Joseph Woll allowed the seven goals on 40 shots as Toronto led 2-0 through one period and later rallied from a 6-4 third-period deficit to force overtime.<\/p>\n

“Certainly, the entertainment value was really high,” Tavares said. “For us, we had a lot of leads in this game, and I think for us to just (be) a little bit loose, execution, some of our decisions, just some mistakes that hurt us.”<\/p>\n

Tavares has seven points in a three-game point streak (four goals, three assists) and reached 30 goals in a season for the eighth time.<\/p>\n

“I’m just trying to work for my game to be what I expect it to be and try to get as much value as you can out of our finish to the season here,” Tavares said.<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals will try to keep their slim playoff hopes alive when they visit the Toronto Maple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5114],"tags":[191,5,4,31,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-546336","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-toronto-maple-leafs","12":"tag-washington","13":"tag-washington-capitals","14":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116365889614675703","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546336","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=546336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}