The most interesting games for the Washington Capitals on Saturday night happened outside of Capital One Arena.
On a night with three Capitals stars in the press box and eyes focused elsewhere around the league, the Capitals dropped a relatively boring contest to the New York Islanders 3-0. With the loss, the Capitals finished the regular season atop the Metropolitan Division with 104 points and a 48-26-8 record. It is the fourth season in a row the Capitals won the division.
The Islanders, who had much more to play for last night, earned second place in the Metro with 103 points and a 48-27-7 record. With the win, they clinched home ice in the first round, where they’ll face the Pittsburgh Penguins, who finished with 100 points.
Absent Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie and John Carlson, the Capitals couldn’t muster a ton of offense all night. They finished with 29 shots, but none of supreme quality and none that found the back of the net.
The first period flew by and ended scoreless, likely a welcome period for both teams that were looking toward next week already.
The Islanders took advantage early in the second period when Valtteri Filppula scored on a breakaway at 2:55 to end the drought and give the Isles a lead. From there, Barry Trotz’s squad put the clamps on defensively.
The Capitals weren’t able to rally in the third as Filppula again found the back of the net on a redirect in front of the net to give New York a 2-0 advantage at 10:54. Matt Martin added an empty-net goal to ice it late.
Niskanen gave credit to the Islanders for playing "stifling," but said the game was "a snooze fest" for the Caps. They're ready for the playoffs.
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) April 7, 2019
Pheonix Copley played admirably in net, considering the circumstances, and saved 21 of 23 shots fired his way. His record fell to 16-7-3 in the loss. Robin Lehner got the shutout win for the Islanders and stopped all 29 shots he saw. He boosted his record to a career best 25-13-5.
All of that is to say that Saturday’s game means nothing to Washington. As mentioned earlier, Game 82 has come and gone and last night was more about who the Capitals would play this week, than who they Capitals were playing. The answer to that question, of course, is now the Carolina Hurricanes.
Carolina, the darlings of the NHL this season with their post-game celebrations, defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 and earned the Eastern Conference’s first Wild-Card spot. And truthfully, kept them out of the Tampa Bay matchup. There will be more in the upcoming hours and days but the fact of the matter is that Saturday’s game didn’t matter much at all.
Up next is Carolina, and the Capitals have got to win four of seven. See you Thursday.