After racing to a 6-2-0 start that mirrored their surprising 2024-25 success, the Washington Capitals have encountered some early season turbulence.
Their current 0-3-1 downturn is worse than any winless streak they sustained a year ago. The loss of No. 2 center Pierre-Luc Dubois to a long-term lower-body injury has compounded their troubles.
The Capitals will look to regroup Wednesday when they host the St. Louis Blues.
“I still think we’re trying to find ourselves a little bit,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “I know the record was what it was early on, but I’m not fooled by that. We’re still trying to find our identity.”
While the Capitals expect to get defenseman Rasmus Sandin back after he missed the last five games with an upper-body injury, the loss of Dubois will force Carberry to shuffle his forward lines.
“It’s huge hole,” Carbery said. “(Dubois was) arguably right up there last year with one of our most valuable players and most important players on our roster. I’m not going to sit here and sugarcoat and say that you can replace him at this point of the year, but you can still be a good hockey team and win a lot of hockey games with injuries.
“That’s part of the attrition you need to be able to handle in this league.”
Star left wing Alex Ovechkin has just two goals and five assists in 12 games. Forwards Connor McMichael and Anthony Beauvillier have just one goal each.
“We’re kind of in that spot right now where things just aren’t going our way,” McMichael said. “We’re going to have to work through it and find different ways to score.”
While the Capitals are dealing with the loss of Dubois, the Blues welcomed No. 1 center Robert Thomas back to action on Monday. He had missed four games with an upper-body injury.
Thomas scored a goal and earned an assist as the Blues snapped a seven-game winless streak (0-5-2) by edging the Edmonton Oilers 3-2 at home.
Blues coach Jim Montgomery had seen signs of progress from his team in recent games. Those improvements finally led to a victory Monday.
“Even during this slide, it may be hard to believe, but the belief in the room is that we’re a good hockey team,” Montgomery said. “I talked about it earlier. There’s a lot of analytics with expected goals for and against and what quadrant we’re in. In the last 10 years, the quadrant we’re in, they haven’t missed the playoffs. That’s why we’ve felt a lot of good things.
“Now, that’s just one win. We’ve got to start building. We’ve got to keep building because I think that we can be a really good hockey team if we keep building it the right way.”
Despite Thomas’ return, Montgomery kept rookie center Dalibor Dvorsky in the lineup and on the power play. Dvorsky, the 10th overall pick of the 2023 NHL Draft, scored his first NHL goal in five career games, and it came with the man advantage.
“That’s a massive goal for us,” Thomas said of the second-period score which cut the St. Louis deficit to 2-1. “You see the way we just kept on rolling after that goal. Some you need a big power play. That was a wicked shot. Definitely should get a lot of credit for really changing the tide of the game.”
