their 5-3 loss to the Florida Panthers on Monday<\/a>, the Washington Capitals\u2019 record is 3-5-2 over the last ten games with just two regulation wins. Twenty days ago they were on a 107-point pace. Now it\u2019s 95 points.<\/p>\nThe Washington Capitals are a playoff bubble team, and that might be putting it too kindly. They\u2019ve been getting worse.<\/p>\n
Capitals rank in each month<\/p>\n
Statistic
\nOct
\nNov
\nDec<\/p>\n
5v5 expected goals
\n3rd
\n8th
\n16th<\/p>\n
5v5 actual goals
\n3rd
\n2nd
\n15th<\/p>\n
Power play
\n26th
\n29th
\n26th<\/p>\n
Penalty kill
\n25th
\n30th
\n7th<\/p>\n
Their strength at even strength is gone. In expected-goal share, where higher is better and fifty percent means even, they went from 57 percent to 53 percent, and now they\u2019re under 50. Same story on the scoreboard, where they\u2019ve dropped from elite territory to hey, maybe we can sneak into the playoffs and make some noise if we\u2019re lucky.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve never had a good power play. Insofar as their penalty kill is good now, it\u2019s entirely to the credit of the goalies, Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren, who saved 66 of 73 shots in December.<\/p>\n
Another way of putting it: The Washington Capitals once were chasing the Colorado Avalanche. Now they\u2019re barely keeping pace with the San Jose Sharks (both .500 this month).<\/p>\n
Some facts:<\/p>\n
The NHL\u2019s roster freeze ended 2 days ago.
\nThe Olympics start in 38 days.
\nThe trade deadline is in 66 days.
\nThe Caps have seven players listed at the center position.<\/p>\n
Pick up the phone. Make a trade. Let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ud83d\udcf8: Katie Adler\/RMNB With their 5-3 loss to the Florida Panthers on Monday, the Washington Capitals\u2019 record is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-377405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/file-chris-patrick-092025-katiea.jpg\")