Tonight, the Caps are looking to keep their late-season playoff surge rolling here in Manhattan. Washington comes in on the heels of an impressive 6-2 victory over the Sabres, Saturday night on home ice. The Caps were up this way on Thursday, falling 7-3 to the Devils, a swift and skilled team with nothing to play for but pride and contracts.
Tonight, they’ll take on another team playing for pride and contracts, and they are doing a good job of it. The Rangers are 4-1-0 in their last five games, and they’ve outscored the opposition by a combined total of 19-7 in the process. They’ll also have a handful of players in their lineup the Caps haven’t seen or faced yet.
“I feel like that’s such a difficult thing to grasp,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “You could say it to someone, but for them to understand that that young player there, this is like their Stanley Cup Final. They’re getting an opportunity to play in the NHL.
“So, you’re going to get such a competitive effort. This is not a team that has mailed it in or just going to casually go through the motions. You’re going to get a team that, yeah, you might not recognize the names, but their effort level and commitment and physicality – all of the things – are going to be 10 out of 10.
“And sometimes they can catch you off guard with, ‘What does this guy do well?’ This League, guys know each other so well, and their individual tendencies. So, when you see some different faces, that can take a little bit.
“But I’m confident that if we can get to our game and do the things that we have to from managing pucks, to being good at tilting the ice, and grabbing some momentum when we’re in the offensive zone for a few multiple shifts, doing the things that we need to do, hopefully we can get to that right away.”
Right Side Of A Good Thing – When the Caps traded John Carlson to Anaheim a month ago, it left them a man short on the right side, and it took away their all-time games played leader (1,143) among defenseman and a dynamic two-way, multi-faceted defenseman on their back end.
The Caps have had their ups and downs in the post-Carlson era; he played his final game with the team on Feb. 5, a game he departed in the first period because of an injury. No one could fathom at the time he was skating off for the final time in a Washington sweater.
Since the Olympic break, the Caps have posted a 10-6-2 record. And while that’s nothing to write home about, it’s enough to keep them on the outskirts of the playoff chase heading into the final 10 days of the campaign.
When Carlson departed, it left Trevor van Riemsdyk as the most senior of Washington defensemen in terms of age (34), NHL games played (746 heading into tonight’s game with the Rangers) and games played with the Caps (382). van Riemsdyk joined the Capitals as an unrestricted free agent on Oct. 10, 2020, a one-year pact at $800,000.
That first season, van Riemsdyk was the Caps’ seventh defenseman and he got into just 20 of the team’s 56 games. He has since signed two more contracts with the Caps, and is now finishing up a three-year, $9 million pact he signed in March of 2023. He has been a reliable and steady defender on the right side since arriving in Washington. He played in all 82 games last season and played at least 70 games in each of his prior three seasons as well, and he reached the 20-point mark in two of those four seasons.
This season, van Riemsdyk has found himself sitting and watching from the press box more than he had since that first 2020-21 season, the pandemic-shortened season with no fans were in the buildings for most of the season. With his contract expiring and his 35th birthday approaching in July, he is at a bit of a crossroads.
van Riemsdyk is also playing some of the best hockey of his career lately.
“I’ve just felt really good lately,” he says. “I’ve gotten into a rhythm of maybe playing a little more consistently and I don’t know what it was, but I’ve had people tell me that since the break, that I’m playing my best hockey. And to be honest, in the last three years it’s probably the best I’ve felt on a hockey rink in a long, long time.
“I feel like my game is in a good spot, and I don’t really know what changed, but I’ve really been trying to just work at it. We have an awesome group for that. It’s a lot of fun to put in the work here, whether it’s with [Hendrix Lapierre], [Nic Dowd] – when he was here – we had a nice group of us that just stay after practice and really kind of re-find the joy in the little things.
“I think sometimes when things aren’t going your way, coming to the rink can be a little bit of a drag when you’re not feeling good, and that’s no way to get out of a kind of a slump, I’d say. I think a lot of that is my teammates have so much fun coming to the rink. It’s always a competition in a friendly, healthy way.
“But yeah, this has been one of the most fun years I’ve had – even though whatever the on-ice stuff may have been – just being at the rink, coming in, working, doing all that stuff. I would stay out so much longer [after practices and morning skates] than maybe I have in the past. But it’s just been a lot of fun, and just kind of re falling in love with the small things and the details of the game. And getting a young guy like Lappy to do it with you kind of reinvigorates you, and it pushes you a little more. And it’s been a lot of fun.”
It’s showing up on the ice, too. Heading into tonight’s game with the Rangers, van Riemsdyk has played 27 straight contests – one of eight Caps to play each of those last 27 – his longest run of the season. He never missed more than two games in a row when he was scratched so the Caps could keep Declan Chisholm and Dylan McIlrath sharp.
Since the return from the Olympic break, van Riemsdyk ranks tied for fourth in the NHL in goals for percentage (69.57%) among all defensemen with at last 250 minutes at 5-on-5. The three players ahead of him over that span are Colorado’s Sam Malinski, Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin and Montreal’s Lane Hutson. van Riemsdyk is tied with Blues defender Cam Fowler.
Each of the three players ahead of van Riemsdyk have offensive zone start rates above 50 percent, while van Riemsdyk’s own rate is at 34.69 percent. So, although he is starting most of the time in his own end of the ice, the Caps have outscored the opposition by 16-7 with him out on the ice since the Olympic break.
Going back a shade further – to Jan. 21, the night he played the first of his 27 consecutive contests – he still ranks sixth among NHL defensemen (375 or more minutes at 5-on-5) with a 62.86 percent goals for percentage, trailing Malinski, Hutson, Dahlin, Pittsburgh’s Erik Karlsson and Columbus’ Damon Severson. And again, van Riemsdyk 31.17 percent offensive-zone start rate is easily the lowest of the group.
“I’m glad you brought that up,” says Carbery. “I wholeheartedly agree, he’s been an unsung hero for our group. And I feel like the last – whatever it’s been – 30 games where he was kind of touch and go through the start of the year for him; he came in and out of the lineup a little bit.
“And this last stretch, he’s been so consistently good for our team, and he does a lot of the little things and a lot of heavy lifting that goes unnoticed in our group. And Riemer, to his credit, [doing] all the things playing in a contract year as a veteran defenseman, trying to show that he can still be a really good defenseman in this League and provide a lot of value for a team. I think he’s done a tremendous job for the group the last, whatever it’s been, 25-30 games.”
Whatever the future holds for his career, the right-handed van Riemsdyk – just four games shy of 750 for his NHL career – he should be a sought-after free agent this summer as teams seek reliable, proven and reasonably priced options for the right side of their back ends.
In The Nets – Charlie Lindgren gets the net tonight for Washington, making his first start since March 12. Although Logan Thompson has been tremendous for the Caps all season and has been a primary driver of Washington’s desperate late push for a playoff berth, Lindgren has backstopped the Caps to some crucial wins along the way, too.
His most recent start – the aforementioned March 12 start in Buffalo on the second night of back-to-backs – is a primary example. Although he yielded the game’s first goal in the front half of the first frame that night, he locked the door tightly thereafter, making 29 saves to lead the Caps to a 2-1 win when Jakob Chychrun scored with less than two minutes remaining.
There was also the shootout victory in Detroit on Jan. 29, a game in which the gritty goaltender had to be helped off the ice at night’s end because of an upper body injury that sidelined him for a month, though a chunk of that time was consumed by the Olympic break.
Lindgren has won both of his starts against the Rangers this season, beating them 6-3 in Washington on New Year’s Eve and blanking them here at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 12 in his first start of the season, a 1-0 win with 35 saves, supported by a second-period goal from Anthony Beauvillier.
Lifetime against the Rangers, Lindgren is 5-1-0 in six appearances – all starts – with two shutouts, a 1.49 GAA and a .946 save pct.
Igor Shesterkin is the likely starter for the Rangers. He is 2-1-0 in his last three starts, yielding just five goals against across those three contests.
Lifetime against Washington, Shesterkin is 9-5-1 in 15 appearances – all starts – with a 2.73 GAA and a .913 save pct.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Caps and the Rangers might look on Sunday night in Manhattan:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 21-Protas
24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
72-Beauvillier, 34-Sourdif, 9-Leonard
22-Duhaime, 29-Lapierre, 53-Frank
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 38-Sandin
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
44-Hutson, 3-Roy
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
48-Thompson
Healthy Extras
27-Liljegren
47-Chisholm
52-McIlrath
53-Frank
63-Miroshnichenko
64-Kampf
Injured/Out
None
NEW YORK
Forwards
94-Perreault, 93-Zibanejad, 13-Lafreniere
24-Kartye, 8-Miller, 43-Sheary
50-Cuylle, 16-Trocheck, 22-Brodzinski
38-Sykora, 42-Laba, 49-Chmelar
Defensemen
44-Gavrikov, 23-Fox
45-Fortescue, 4-Schneider
29-Robertson, 17-Borgen
Goalies
31-Shesterkin
32-Quick
Healthy Extras
6-Iorio
14-Raddysh
33-Garand
84-Edstrom
Injured/Out
18-Vaakanainen (upper body)
73-Rempe (thumb)