Why you can’t ignore the Capitals during their playoff push

After finishing with the second-best record in the NHL last season, the Washington Capitals have taken a step back in 2025-26, going into Tuesday with a 31-24-7 record and 69 points, fourth in the Metropolitan Division and two points back of a Wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference.

But dating back to Jan. 29, the Capitals have won six of their last eight games and have set themselves up to battle for a playoff spot in the final 20 games of the regular season. Can a 40-year-old Alex Ovechkin and a rejuvenated Tom Wilson and Jakob Chychrun get this team into the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the 17th time in the last 19 seasons?

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the Capitals’ playoff chances and where they rank among the other teams competing in the East.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Nearly all the teams in the Eastern Conference who currently hold a playoff spot hold a 75% chance or higher of making the playoffs, according to MoneyPuck. The one team on the bubble is the Boston Bruins, who have a 55% chance. The three teams chasing them are the Ottawa Senators, Columbus Blue Jackets and Washington Capitals, and all three of them are above .500 in their last 10 games.

If you have to pick this or that, which of those three do you like the most?

Carter Hutton: I like Washington. I don’t want to get too far in depth because I see Pierre-Luc Dubois returning to the lineup, and you look at all the good things he’s done since he became a Capital. I think he may be that depth option who can help them out.

Down the stretch, I look for Logan Thompson to carry the load and be a big-time difference maker, with the confidence boost that he’s felt since being on Team Canada at the Olympics and being consistent through the year.

I also think that Spencer Carbery does a very good job of motivating his players. As a guy who was a professional athlete and has lived it: down the stretch, if you can have a coach who finds a way to get you to buy in and really gel as a group, it’s powerful.

Trust me, if you start to slip in the standings, it’s easy to start thinking about vacation and the summer, because the paychecks keep coming, whether you win or lose. That’s something a head coach understands and getting a group to be together.

Tyler Yaremchuk: The one thing working against Washington is that they’ve played a ton of hockey already. They’ve only got 20 games left this season, they’re at 62 games and that’s three more than Boston, four more than Columbus, three more than the Senators. If you want to go purely off the math, Columbus might have the best chance, because if they win their games in hand, they’ll leapfrog Washington and only be three points back of the Bruins.

But Washington on paper, they should be better than everyone else, they should be a playoff team, but again, at the 62-game mark, they haven’t proven that there’s any sort of a gap there, which makes me a little more skeptical on them. They do have the best goal differential of the three, as well.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…