Washington Capitals: A look at April so far and what awaits

The Washington Capitals have had a roller coaster month of April. They’ve had exciting wins, tough losses, said goodbye to some players and hello to a few new ones. Now the team is set for the final 10 games ahead and then the Stanley Cup playoffs.

April began with an 8-4 loss to the New York Islanders. They bounced back against the New Jersey Devils the next night winning 2-1 behind Dmitry Orlov‘s overtime goal. They completed the eight game sweep of the Devils on Easter Sunday with a 5-4 win.

The Caps would fall to the Islanders 1-0 and the Boston Bruins on home ice 4-2 before bouncing back with a 4-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres. They would wrap up the road trip with an 8-1 win over the Bruins. Then things began to look different.

The Caps traded away Jonas Siegenthaler to the Devils. The next day they dealt Jakub Vrana, Richard Panik, a first rounder this year and a second rounder next year to the Detroit Red Wings for Anthony Mantha. They also acquired Michael Raffl from the Philadelphia Flyers.

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The Caps would dominate the Flyers and Mantha would heat up with his first goal in four straight games, showing the hockey world that the Caps won the trade. I wasn’t sure about giving up the first rounder but with a weak draft class coming in compared to previous years maybe it wasn’t a total loss.

Conor Sheary also scored in that game and the next day the Caps awarded him with a two year, $3 million extension. The Caps have liked what they’ve seen from Sheary’s production and he earned that playing time and contract.

The Caps would fall to the Sabres on home ice 5-2 in Nicklas Backstrom’s 1,000th game but bounce back against the Flyers 6-3 before falling to the Bruins on Sunday by a similar 6-3 count. That brings us to here where the Caps are in the middle of a break where they are practicing and gearing up for the grind ahead.

There are 10 games left on the schedule. Three straight coming against the Islanders. The first two of those are on Long Island. The finale is in D.C. in front of Caps fans for the first time this season.

Following the Islanders series, the Caps will host the Pittsburgh Penguins for two games at Capital One Arena. This will be a much different Penguins team compared to their last meeting back in February.

Next up will be two games at Madion Square Garden against the pesky New York Rangers. Then there will be a back to back home ice affair with the Flyers before ending the regular season against the Bruins.

The Caps right now are 6-5-0 in the month of April. They play their best hockey some night and not so good hockey the other nights. As of this writing, the Caps are 29-13-4 for 62 points. The Islanders have an identical record and points. These three games may determine who wins the MassMutual East Division.

The Penguins are right behind them at 61 points so those two home contests against them will be huge. The Bruins are close behind at 58 points. Could the Caps see the Bruins in the first round? Or the Penguins? Or maybe even the Islanders? We’re about to find out soon and the Caps better be ready.