Games In Hand An Annoying Issue For The Washington Capitals

It is still way too early to scoreboard watch in the National Hockey League for the Washington Capitals. The playoffs do not start for another two and a half months. A lot can happen between now and then. Teams can go on runs and maybe even those same teams can go on slumps. There is still about thirty-five games to be played. A lot can happen.

The rough start to the season by the Capitals forces scoreboard watching at least a little. If the team had gotten off to just a little bit of a better start, Washington would be in the playoffs easily, they would have some breathing room and you would not have to look at the out of town scores as much. However, that slow start has put the Caps in the battle for playoff positioning which will likely not end until game eighty-two is played.

As we stand the Capitals are in a pretty good spot. Even with the bad start, they are in a playoff spot and have just the slightest amount of breathing room. As of writing this Washington is in the first wild card spot and have a five point cushion over the first non playoff team, that being both the Panthers and Islanders.

They are very close to at least one team ahead of them as well. The New York Rangers sit only one point ahead of Washington at the time of writing this. One loss by New York and one win by the Capitals and Washington is third in the division.

But there is something else to look at when you look at the standings. Games played. Seemingly for most of this season the Capitals have played a lot more games than the teams around them and that still rings true right now.

Thankfully this is not too much of an issue when it comes to teams behind the Caps in the standings. Two teams trying to catch the Capitals and potentially knock them out of the playoffs have played just one less games than the Caps. The Panthers and Islanders are the first two teams out of a playoff position out east, they are five points behind Washington with just one less game played.

The first team to potentially worry about in terms of games in hand is the Buffalo Sabres. Buffalo has played in four fewer games than the Capitals. They are currently seven points out of a playoff spot. If, and that is a pretty big if, but if the Sabres win those games in hand that is eight points and it puts them ahead of the Capitals.

A lot of other teams have games in hand as well and that is what puts Washington in a weird and annoying spot. All of the teams ahead of the Capitals in the division have three games in hand. The one team behind them in the wild card, the Penguins, also has three games in hand.

Pittsburgh has three games in hand and they are just two points behind the Caps. I am willing to bet the Pens can find three points in there and pass Washington.

Like I said, all the teams ahead of the Caps in the division have three games in hand which could make it really difficult to move up in the standings. Carolina leads the division and has three games in hand with a ten points advantage. The odds of Washington winning the division this year probably are not good so maybe stop watching Carolina.

The New Jersey Devils are still hanging in there. I and maybe others have been waiting for that ship to crash land when coming back to earth. But they still have an eight point lead on the Capitals and they also have three games in hand.

The Rangers are the most vulnerable team being just one point above the Capitals. But, again, they have not just one and not only two, but three games in hand. They will play tonight going down to two games in hand. We’ll see how that game vs a surging Panthers team goes.

The Capitals are a good team. They should probably make the playoffs. It is a team stacked with talent and they are getting healthier. They do have that really annoying problem of having played more games than every team around them.

That means you need to scoreboard watch a little bit. With this annoying problem it is going to be hard to move up in the standings. Which could potentially land the Capitals in a playoff matchup with either the Carolina Hurricanes or the Boston Bruins in the first round. Either would be an incredible test and a very hard series.

We’ll see if games in hand ends up hurting the Capitals. For right now, it is just an annoying little issue they will have to deal with.