Where Do The Caps Stand?

The Washington Capitals‘ win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday was a microcosm of the 2025-26 season, with a good start, a disastrous middle to leave the team hanging by a thread in the playoff chase.

While the Capitals got out of Vegas with 2 points, they return home Tuesday with another game vital to their slim playoff hopes, with the surging Philadelphia Flyers visiting Capital One Arena.

With eight games remaining, while Washington has three teams between them and the playoffs, they also are within six points of three playoff spots in the New York Islanders, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Columbus Blue Jackets, with the team’s final three games against the latter teams.

Washington reached the NHL .500 mark with the win and currently sits at 82 points – which would be good for third in the Pacific Division or the top Wild Card in the Western Conference – and they can reach 99 points should they run the table, and that likely would be good enough for one of the available Eastern Conference spots.

With the top-heavy conference, Washington’s playoff hopes have been teetering on the edge since they fell out of a playoff spot in mid-January, seemingly suffering back-breaking losses to push them out of the picture, to follow up with wins to creep closer to the pack. Now, Washington will be heading into the home stretch, remaining about where they’ve been since January, within reach of the playoffs with a win streak, but not really being able to make inroads into returning to the postseason for the third straight season.

While 91 points was the cut-off line the last two seasons, certainly that total will be higher this year with teams approaching 90 points already, but with the head-to-head matchups involving teams in the chase ahead, the unknown is what the magic point total will be to get in.

The Capitals have the head-to-head matchups in their favor, as they can directly reduce their deficit with the Penguins by 4 with a pair of regulation wins in the home-and-home series the final weekend of the season, and reduce the Jackets deficit by 2 in the season finale.

Washington also would likely have the first tiebreak in their favor, as they currently lead all the other teams in the mix in regulation wins except for the Ottawa Senators, and unlike the teams in the Atlantic Divison race, they would have at least three spots to chase with the second- and third-place in the Metro as well as the Wild Card spot currently occupied by Columbus.

Should Washington go 6-2 in their final eight games, they would finish with 95 points, and they would have a decent shot of a spot, particularly if those wins include the three head-to-heads with the Pens and Jackets, as well as winning the game against Philadelphia. Certainly, a stronger finish bolsters their case, but finishing with less than 95 seems to make a spot a long shot.

Washington also plays five of eight on the road, but three of those games involve teams well out of the hunt, including the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs. The Capitals’ last two road games are the only ones against playoff teams are the Penguins and Jackets, and come in the team’s final three games.

The home schedule is tougher, but after the Flyers, they get a Buffalo Sabres team that seems to be coming down a bit from their impressive half-season sprint to the playoffs, as well as the home finale against the Penguins on April 12.

Certainly, this has been a season of missed opportunities for the Capitals, and should they want to keep their faint realistic hopes alive, certainly the game Tuesday seems like a must to try and close the gap.

Washington blew a golden chance to inch closer this week with a shutout loss to the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday, but the team’s wins against the Utah Mammoth on Thursday and Vegas have kept them still within striking distance. But while it is important to get help on the out-of-town scoreboard, it’s also imperative for the team to finish strong to have any shot to sneak in at the last minute, as anything below .500 leaves them with no shot at playing on into late April.

While the team’s deadline moves failed to help the club at all, the signing of defenseman Cole Hutson has helped the team’s power play and has performed well, notching five points in six games, all coming with the extra man.

Hutson has come as advertised so far, fitting in smoothly with Washington, and adding an element of skill to the team’s blueline, and has helped make up for the trade of John Carlson to the Anaheim Ducks.

Washington’s coaching staff also thrown its support behind Logan Thompson as starting goaltender during this month, as he has played every game in March except one and has excelled, posting a .912 save percentage in 11 contests despite a 5-4-0 mark, allowing the Caps to stay in games even with a struggling offense.

Charlie Lindgren has played just one game this month, and while impressive in a win in Buffalo on March 12, clearly Spencer Carbery’s staff is pinning its hopes on Lindgren and playing him nearly every night.

Of course, there is precedent for Washington rallying despite being sellers at the deadline to sneak into the postseason.

Two years ago, the Capitals hung around enough to sneak into the playoffs on the season’s final night, despite being handed a seemingly devastating loss in Buffalo with eight games left to leave them a point out of the playoffs with a group of teams chasing. While they were not overly impressive down the last eight games that season, going just 4-3-1, they also only had a single point deficit to overcome; the other teams they were battling also struggled and got in with 91 points.

Now, with a bigger deficit and even more teams involved in the mix, they will try to pull off the same feat but will have to be much more successful this time around.

This week, including the now-pivotal game against Philadelphia, will determine if those last three games against the Penguins and Jackets will mean anything other than trying to play spoiler. Despite their sell-off at the deadline, the team has done enough to hang around, but the question is if they have a push to finally erase the deficit they have failed to close in over two months.