After struggling for about two months it now seems that the real Washington Capitals have returned. Since the month of March started the Capitals are 7-0-1. From January 1st through the end of February the team was a pretty pathetic 8-12-2, that was a bottom third record in the entire National Hockey League.
At the end of February Washington found themselves in the very last playoff spot, the second wild card position. They were thirteen points behind the division leading Hurricanes, nine points behind the Penguins and six points behind the Rangers. They were also three points behind the Bruins who were in the first wild card spot.
Here we are just about half a month later and those numbers have shrunk quite a bit. They now trail the Canes by eight, the Penguins by three and the Rangers by just one. They are behind the Bruins by just one as well.
It has indeed been quite the turnaround. That being said, even having gone on a good spell the Capitals are still in the second wild card position. In eight games the Caps have not lost in regulation but have still not managed to move up in the standings in the eastern conference. That goes to show you how tough it is to make up room and jump teams, especially playoff teams.
To jump over some of the teams ahead of them in the standings the Capitals are going to have to keep doing what they are doing now. On top of that, the teams ahead of them are probably going to have to continue putting up somewhat mediocre results.
The Penguins for example have gone 4-2-1 this month. Not bad, most teams would accept that I would think. The teams they have lost to are also not slouches. They lost to Carolina in overtime, Florida and Nashville, all of them on the road.
The Rangers have put up a record that I think most teams would be okay with too. In the month of March they are 5-3. They have lost to Minnesota, St. Louis and the Islanders.
Even the mighty Hurricanes have been up and down. They have a good hockey record of 4-3-2, but at the end of the day that is still four wins and five losses.
The Bruins have a pretty good March record of 6-2-1.
Now you are kind of seeing why the Capitals have closed the gap a bit. Washington has gotten some good results, while the teams they are chasing are just kind of doing okay. Will these kinds of results remain the same for an extended period of time? Maybe. Could just as easily not.
Even during this good stretch you could easily argue the Capitals could have lost all three of those western Canada games. In Calgary they were down 2-0 early and eventually down 3-2 in the third period. They were outclassed in Edmonton for large chucks and without Ilya Samsonov that game that could have been a blowout early. They were also down to Vancouver 3-2 late in that game.
My point, it’s hard to beat almost every team in the NHL. Going on these extended runs is very difficult. Maybe they will do it, maybe they won’t. I don’t know either way, I’m not a fortune teller unfortunately.
For the Capitals to move up in the standings they are probably going to need to keep up a pace similar to this and hope the teams ahead of them remain in these somewhat up and down trend of results they are getting. I would say both of these are somewhat unlikely, neither being out of the question though.
Lets just say they don’t keep up this pace. Lets just say all the teams we’ve mentioned finish the season doing what they have done all season. The Capitals have a points percentage of .635 this season, lets give them the amount of points they should get if they hold true to that for the remaining 19 games.
I will not claim to be a mathematician so my apologies if these numbers are off but they seem to make sense to me at least.
If the Capitals follow their points percentage for the year they should end up with around 104 points at seasons end. That sounds good, but other teams are better.
The Hurricanes would finish their season with 118 points, the Penguins would finish around 109 and the New York Rangers would be right behind them at 108.
The Capitals would also not even jump the Bruins who would finish with 107.
There are countless combinations of records you could give teams from now until the end of the year. The Bruins could go on a seven game losing streak and the Capitals could go on to win twelve of the next thirteen. You never know. There are too many games remaining to try to guess or estimate what records are needed to say who will finish where. It’s a waste of time in my opinion right now. The final five to eight games are probably when I start doing things like that.
Not to mention the trade deadline isn’t even officially here. That can also throw teams off for a certain amount of time or make them even better. It’s to hard to “predict” how teams will do for the next little while.
Something that is not hard to predict, it’s hard to move past playoff teams in the standings. The Capitals are going to have to keep doing what they are doing now to give themselves a chance. Anything less it is going to be very, very difficult.