After about two months of fighting, it now seems that the real Washington Capitals are back. Since the month of March began, the capitals have been 7-0-1. From January 1 to the end of February, the team was a rather pathetic 8-12-2, which was a third-best record in the entire National Hockey League.
At the end of February, Washington was in the very last playoff spot, the second Wild Card position. They were thirteen points behind the Division Hurricanes division, nine points behind the Penguins and six points behind the Rangers. They were also three points behind the Bruins who were in first Wild Card place.
Here we are only about half a month later and those numbers have pretty much shrunk. They now drive the canes around eight, the penguins around three and the rangers around only one. They are behind the bruins of just one too.
It really has taken a whole turn. That being said, even after going on a good spell, the capitals are still in second wild card position. In eight games, the Caps have not lost in regulation, but have still not managed to move up the rankings in the Eastern Conference. This shows you how difficult it is to make room and jump teams, especially playoff teams.
To jump over some of the teams ahead of them in the standings, the Capitals have to keep doing what they are doing now. In addition, the team in front of them will probably have to continue to produce somewhat mediocre results.
The penguins, for example, went 4-2-1 this month. Not bad, most teams would accept that, I think. The teams they lost to are also not sleeping. They lost to Carolina in overtime, Florida and Nashville, all on the road.
The Rangers set a record that I think most teams are good at as well. In March, they are 5-3. They lost to Minnesota, St. Louis and the Islanders.
Even the powerful hurricanes are up and down. They have a good hockey stick of 4-3-2, but at the end of the day that is still four wins and five losses.
The Bruins have a pretty good March record of 6-2-1.
Now you can somehow see why the capitals have closed the gap a bit. Washington has gotten some good results, while the teams that follow them are simply doing well. Do these types of results stay the same for a long time? Maybe. Could not just as easily.
Even during this good stretch, you can easily argue that the capital could have lost all three of those western Canada players. In Calgary, they stood early with 2-0 and finally 3-2 in the third period. They were outclassed to Edmonton for big chucks and without Ilya Samsonov the game that would have been a blowout early. They also fell 3-2 to Vancouver late in that game.
My point, it’s hard to beat almost any team in the NHL. Going on these extended runs is very difficult. Maybe they will, maybe not. I also do not know, I am unfortunately not a fortune.
To climb the capitals and rankings, they will likely maintain a pace similar to this and hope that the team ahead of them in this slightly up and down trend of the results they get will stay. I would say that the two are a bit unlikely, but neither are out of the question.
Let’s just say they don’t keep up that pace. Let’s just say that all the teams we mentioned finish the season what they did all season. The Capitals have a points percentage of .635 this season, letting them get the amount of points they should get if they keep that for the remaining 19 players.
I will not claim to be a mathematician so my apologies if these numbers are out but they seem to make the least sense.
If Capitals track their points percentage for the year, they should end up with around 104 points at the end of the seasons. That sounds good, but other teams are better.
The Hurricanes would finish their season with 118 points, the Penguins would finish around 109 and the New York Rangers would be right behind at 108.
The Capitals would not even jump the Browns, finishing with 107.
There are countless combinations of records that could give you teams from now until the end of the year. The Bruins could go on a seven-game losing streak and the Capitals could continue to win twelve of the next thirteen. You never know. There are too many players left to try to guess or estimate what record will be needed to tell who finished where. It is in my opinion a waste of time. The last five to eight games are likely when I start doing such things.
Not to mention, the trade deadline is not even official here. This can also throw teams off for a while or make them even better. It’s too hard to ‘predict’ how the team will fare in the near future.
Something that is not difficult to predict, it is difficult to get past playoff teams in the standings. The capitals must continue to do what they are doing now to give themselves a chance. Anything less will be very, very difficult.
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