New Year’s Eve – The Caps close out the 2025 portion of their 2025-26 season’s slate today when they host the New York Rangers in a New Year’s Eve matinee at Capital One Arena. Washington is still seeking to play its way out of a tailspin that has covered much of the month of December; the Caps come into today’s game with just two wins in their last nine games (2-5-2). They’ve been unable to stack wins together since their season long six-game winning streak was halted in a shootout loss at Anaheim on Dec. 5.
Just over a week ago, the Rangers were in town for the final game for both teams ahead of the NHL’s three-day holiday break. The Caps carried a 3-2 lead into the third period of that game, only to be swarmed by an eruption of five unanswered goals from the Rangers in the final frame in what became an ugly 7-3 setback, the only game the Caps have dropped this season when leading after 40 minutes of play (17-1-0).
“We’ve talked about a few things structurally, for sure,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “There are a few things that we took from that game that we could do a better job with, and some things adjustment wise, that we’ll make tonight. I thought we did a lot of good things through the game, and then just made a few key mistakes, especially in that third period, that that end up putting us in a bad spot.”
Today, the Caps hope to put a better foot forward against the Blueshirts. Washington enters with a 5-5-3 record for the month of December, and it carries an 8-3-2 mark against its fellow Metropolitan Division denizens.
Washington will insert blueliner Dylan McIlrath into its lineup today, according to Carbery.
So I Can Take My Rest – Coming out of the three-day holiday break, the schedule served up some more holiday hustle and bustle for the Caps. They had to wake up at the crack of dawn this past Saturday and fly to New Jersey for the first of four games in a span of five and a half days, with travel required for all four contests.
That’s a daunting enough stretch at any time of the season, let alone hopping right into it after spending three straight days away from the rigors of the rink. Washington was able to conduct a Sunday afternoon practice in Ft. Lauderdale, but it scrapped a scheduled practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on Tuesday, an unusual occurrence given the back-to-back afternoon starts on their horizon.
But the reality of the condensed schedule to accommodate the NHL’s participation in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games is coaches need to be more mindful of giving their players more rest and recovery time, because the number of games remains the same this season. Every team is still playing 82 games, it’s the rest and recovery time that is harder to come by.
“This year is just unique,” says Carbery. “You adapt by coaching for whatever it is, the last 15 years. Rest has certainly become much more of a tool than in years past. That’s just us gaining knowledge of what is truly needed to prepare for, I’m not even saying NHL games, I’m saying AHL, ECHL; it doesn’t matter. Rest is an important element.
“And I think, too, the thing I think is funny about that is the players are just so well taken care of and they look after themselves at such a high level that it used to be back in the day, you would practice to ‘sweat it out.’ You’d get on the ice, and that’s how it worked, is you get out and you practice every day, and you go for a morning skate. It’s 25 minutes. 25 minutes, and then you play.
“It’s completely different now. With regards to this year though, in the condensed schedule with the with the Olympic break, I think this is the uniqueness of this year, is we’re figuring that out on the fly, what works what doesn’t. So, I’ll give you an example. We’ve given way more days off – like [Tuesday] than we have. [Tuesday] being a day off, I would have been extremely reluctant in years past to do that, based on a 12:30 [p.m.] game just because, now you’re just walking right into a game. You haven’t touched a puck, in call it 36 or however many hours it’s been since our last game.
“So now you know you’re searching or trying to find ways to incorporate rest, recovery and be effective on the ice. It’s a little bit of learning on the fly and seeing what works for your group. I feel like we’ve found a pretty good sweet spot, but that doesn’t mean it won’t change and make adjustments along the way.
“You have to have a really good feel for your group, too, and that’s where the communication with your leadership group and how they feel [is important]. How do we perform in a situation like today? I’ll be keeping a close eye on how we look from an energy standpoint. How’s our execution?”
Today against the Rangers and tomorrow against the Senators in Ottawa, the Caps will play the last two of those four games in five and a half days.
In The Nets – In Charlie Lindgren’s first start of the season on Oct. 12 against the Rangers in New York, he delivered a 1-0 shutout victory over the Blueshirts. Today, he gets the start in the Caps last game of calendar 2025 against the same team.
In five career starts and appearances against the Rangers, Lindgren is 4-1-0 with two shutouts, a 1.19 GAA and a .957 save pct.
For the Rangers, we are expecting to see Igor Shesterkin in goal today. Lifetime against the Capitals, Shesterkin is 9-5-1 in 15 appearances and starts, with a 2.73 GAA and a .915 save pct.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Capitals and Rangers might look on Wednesday afternoon in DC:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
24-McMichael, 34-Sourdif, 8-Ovechkin
21-Protas, 17-Strome, 43-Wilson
9-Leonard, 26-Dowd, 53-Frank
22-Duhaime, 29-Lapierre, 72-Beauvillier
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
6-Chychrun, 3-Roy
38-Sandin, 52-McIlrath
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
48-Thompson
Healthy Extras
15-Milano
47-Chisholm
57-van Riemsdyk
Injured/Out
80-Dubois (lower body)
NEW YORK
Forwards
10-Panarin, 93-Zibanejad, 13-Lafreniere
94-Perreault, 16-Trocheck, 22-Brodzinski
50-Cuylle, 42-Laba, 14-Raddysh
78-Othmann, 39-Carrick, 73-Rempe
Defensemen
44-Gavrikov, 4-Schneider
24-Soucy, 17-Borgen
29-Robertson, 60-Morrow
Goalies
31-Shesterkin
32-Quick
Healthy Extras
18-Vaakanainen
43-Sheary
65-Berard
Injured/Out
8-Miller
23-Fox
84-Edstrom