Fifty games into the 2025-26 season, the Washington Capitals entered Wednesday night's game against the Vancouver Canucks on the outside looking in for the Eastern Conference playoff race. They were four points behind the Boston Bruins for the final wild-card spot and five points back of the New York Islanders for third place in the Metropolitan Division.
It's not an ideal spot for the Capitals with another year in the career of superstar Alex Ovechkin half over and the real possibility of Washington missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs. However, they had a golden opportunity to collect two valuable points against a Canucks team that was sitting on a franchise-record 11-game winless streak. It's dire times for Vancouver, which is likely going to be a big-time seller at the trade deadline.
Things started out well for Washington, but as they have so many other times this year, they fell apart and were not able to hold onto an early two-goal lead before falling, 4-3, in what is one of the most disappointing losses of the season to date. After the game, head coach Spencer Carbery didn't hold back his frustration.
Capitals coach Spencer Carbery frustrated after loss to Canucks
Everyone knows how big a trip this is for the Capitals. There was an opportunity to bank some points in the standings in both the wild-card and division race. Things looked promising against Vancouver after power play goals from Dylan Strome and Justin Sourdif just over a minute apart in the first period gave them a 2-0 lead. However, goals from Brock Boeser and Evander Kane tied the game through 20 minutes.
Two second-period goals gave the Canucks a two-goal lead entering the third period, and despite Strome's second goal of the game with 3:23 left, Washington came up one goal short. Carbery expressed his frustration after another loss.
“At the end of the day, we're just making too many big mistakes,” said Carbery. “I sound like a broken record, but that's just the reality of it. We're making massive, massive mistakes, and it's throughout. You just can't in this league – it's just too competitive – you just cannot give free goals, and that's what we're doing too much.”
He's not wrong. These are the things Washington wasn't doing last year when it won the Metropolitan Division. Less than a year later, mistakes are ending up in the back of their net. Last year, they were not making those mistakes. This year they are.
This stretch is going to be telling for Washington with the Olympic Break just a couple of weeks away. If they can't make up ground in the standings in the wild-card race and the division, do they look at taking a path at the trade deadline they don't want to? Unlikely, but like the New York Rangers being realistic, the Capitals might have to do the same.
They still have four games remaining on their current six-game trip. They have a tough back-to-back against the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers beginning on Friday night, before a trip to Seattle to play the Kraken, and before a stop in Detroit to play the red-hot Red Wings. It's going to be a big seven days for Carbery and his team, which has now lost four games in a row.