The Capitals Tough Schedule That Might Not Be So Tough After All

The Washington Capitals are now in the stretch that we have been looking at for a long time now. Before we even started our 82 game marathon that is the NHL season we talked about the part of the schedule that the Caps now find themselves in. Rightly so I believe.

When you looked at this schedule weeks ago it looked simply like this. From the end of October to the middle of November, or October 27th to November 19th, the Capitals play a game every other day with a back to back in there as well. That is 13 games in 24 days. That is going to be tough for any team.

Then you had to consider who the Capitals played during that stretch. If the Capitals play some contenders in there but then play a bad team here and there it wouldn’t be quite as bad. Most of the teams in that stretch were contenders. Nine by my count.

The majority of that coming in a two week span. From November 7th to the 19th the Capitals play seven games vs teams you have to imagine were or are contenders. In order it is Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Tampa then Tampa again, then Florida, St. Louis, and finally the defending Cup champ Colorado Avalanche.

All of those teams had to be considered legit contenders to start the year. Now that we are here and starting this hard stretch, maybe it does not look quite as threatening as it could have or should have been?

None of those contending teams have gotten off to terrific starts. Some of those teams have just flat out gotten off to bad starts.

Take the most recent game for example, the Edmonton Oilers. They were recently on a five game winning streak, but with a loss against the Capitals the other night they are now on a three game losing spell and are just 7-6 on the year.

Then we can move on to the Capitals next opponent, the Pittsburgh Penguins. They came out of the gate well winning four of their first five games. They have then followed that up with a seven, yes a seven game losing streak and now find themselves just 4-6-2.

The Capitals then play the Tampa Bay Lightning twice, first at home then in Tampa. The Bolts are off to a fine start, nothing to write home about though. They are currently just 7-4-1. The Lightning are a tough team, we know this. They will pick it up later in the year. If you are going to play the Lightning, early in the year is the time to do it.

Next up will be the Florida Panthers, the team that knocked the Capitals out of last season’s playoffs. They are also in that “okay” category. Their record being 7-5-1 at the time of writing this.

The Caps then travel to St. Louis to face to Blues who are off to an awful start at 3-7-0, the very bottom of the western conference.

They then finish this tough stretch off by hosting the Colorado Avalanche. Last years Cup winners also off to just an average start of 6-4-1.

All of these teams still have potential. The records really don’t matter too much at this point. All of these teams are still good, have a ton of good players and if any of these teams ended up lifting Lord Stanley’s Cup at seasons end none of us would be surprised. But with a lot of these teams just playing average hockey, some of them even playing poorly, this stretch may not be as tough as it looked weeks ago.

That being pointed out, it may be tougher for a different reason. As we all know Washington is dealing with a pretty severe injury bug. It’s one thing to have a lot of injuries, it’s another to have the injuries hitting the stars of a team. The combined salary of the injured players is now over $40 million, that is insane.

The Capitals have still played pretty well considering. Look at some of the results even with all of these guys out. Loss to Carolina in a shootout, loss to Vegas in OT, loss to Detroit, loss to Arizona that should have been a win quite frankly, then win vs the Oilers. Two extra time losses that could have gone either way once it got to overtime, and a game you let get away. We’re looking at just one win and four losses but that could have easily been four wins and one loss.

Honestly, even though this part of the schedule should still be tough, it could be a lot worse. The Capitals could be folding thanks to all of their injuries. They are not. These tough teams coming up on the schedule could all be playing up to their potential and have great records. They do not.

It is still going to be a tough two weeks for Washington, but as of right now, it does not look quite as tough as it once did.