Waiting for Columbus – The Caps complete a three-game home stretch and begin a series of back-to-back Metro Division weekend games late Saturday afternoon by hosting the Columbus Blue Jackets at Capital One Arena. The Caps are riding a five-game home winning streak – their longest in five years – heading into Saturday’s game against the Jackets.

After three third-period goals earned them a 3-3 tie on Thursday night and gave them a 6-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens, the Caps got a surprise day off on Friday before their busy weekend.

Against the Jackets today, Washington will make a lineup change; Hendrix Lapierre moves back into the middle of a line between Jakub Vrana and Andrew Mangiapane. Lapierre sat out each of the home team’s first two games while Mike Sgarbossa manned the halfway line.

“Speed, compete; Go out and play,” said Caps coach Spencer Carbery when asked what he expects from Lapierre upon his return to the lineup today. “I don’t care too much about anything structurally. I just want him to go out there and work, use the puck hard, use his speed whenever he can and give us good, reliable minutes.”

Columbus defeated Edmonton 6-1 on Monday and defeated the Islanders on Wednesday before facing the 2024-25 Winnipeg Jets in the finale of their own three-game home series on Friday and suffering a 6-2 loss. The Jackets have been a fast-starting team this season; They’ve only scored five first-period goals in 10 games, and the Jets’ Nikolaj Ehlers scored two of those five goals last night.

“Our start is going to be really important, especially because they’re competing back-to-back and we’re taking the day off (on Friday) to rest and recover,” Carbery said. “So it can’t be a slow start for us tonight because sometimes these teams go back-to-back, and yeah, I know they didn’t have success against Winnipeg last night, but they’re just getting back into replay mode. And we’ve been on the road for 36 hours and then it takes us a while to get the engines running again. We will be wary of that and make sure we start on time today.”

Like the Caps, the Jackets have only played three away games to this point in the season. Columbus begins a string of five straight road games today in Washington.

“They compete really hard, which is to be expected knowing (Jackets coach Dean Evason),” Carbery said of the Jackets. “They work. They changed some systems, which may have helped them. But I like a lot of their young players that they have there that are producing for them.

“And for me it’s the three – and you could say four – defenders that cause a lot of problems for teams: (Ivan) Provorov, (Zach) Werenski, especially; and I group (Damon) Severson there because he also moves very well laterally. These guys – whether they’re outside the rush or in coverage of the (defensive) zone – can cause problems if you don’t do a good job with your players and if you don’t manage to close in under control in several respects.

“That’s something we need to be aware of and a reason why they’ve had so much success.”

Whenever you call – With blueliners Matt Roy and Jakob Chychrun still recovering from injuries, the Caps are down to six healthy defensemen on the roster. And with a series of back-to-back weekend games — and a quick trip to Carolina for a Sunday game against the Hurricanes — looming, the Caps made a roster move Saturday morning.

Chychrun was placed on IR, retroactive to October 29, and Washington recalled defenseman Vincent Iorio from AHL Hershey. Iorio, Washington’s second-round pick (55th overall) in the 2021 NHL Draft.

The 21-year-old Iorio has played for Washington each of the last two seasons, providing an assist in nine games and also took part in a Stanley Cup playoff contest with the Caps last spring. Iorio has one goal and three points and is a plus-3 in nine games with Hershey this season.

Time changes everything – Thursday’s 6-3 victory over the Canadiens in the middle game of the Caps’ three-game homestand marked Washington’s fifth straight win at Capital One Arena. After losing their season opener to the Devils here on October 12th, the Caps have not suffered a loss at home since.

The Caps’ current trip home began less than three weeks ago; It started with a win over Vegas on October 14th. Washington had not won more than five straight home games in nearly five years since October 16 and November. 9. 2019.

The last time the Caps won five straight home games, those contests were played over a 24-day period, spread across three different home stands and featuring the team’s longest road trip this season. More than three weeks can be a significant stretch For an NHL club, five years is absolutely a long time. With that in mind, here are some interesting facts about the Capitals’ recent five-game home win streak nearly five years ago.

These internationals of the 2019/20 season dropped their first three home games of the season (0-1-2) for the first time since 1983/84 (0-3-0) and finally got their first win with a 4-3 comeback -Victory Toronto, in which Jakub Vrana, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Nicklas Backstrom and John Carlson provided the offense. Some things never change – Carlson played 28:05 that night.

Two nights later, the Caps won the homestand final before a long road trip, a 5-2 victory over the Rangers in Michal Kempny’s first game back after missing seven months for surgery and subsequent rehab for a torn hamstring. Friday night’s sellout crowd went wild when Kempny scored late in the first game, and TJ Oshie’s two goals gave the Caps a rousing win – Braden Holtby over Henrik Lundqvist – on the road.

The subsequent five-game trip was a huge success; The Caps went 4-0-1 on the road. In the second game of the trip to Calgary, Carlson scored two goals in a 5-3 win, opening and closing the scoring for the Caps with his seventh multi-point game in just 11 games to start the season. Coming home from that trip, Carlson had eight multi-point games in October and finished the month with seven goals and 23 points in 14 games.

Carlson played his 700th career NHL game in the only loss of the trip, a 4-3 overtime setback in Edmonton.

In the penultimate game of the trip on October 25th in Vancouver, the Caps and Canucks fought a wild duel. The Caps trailed 5-1 late in the second period but rallied with four unanswered goals – on five shots and in 7:42 of game time – to force overtime and then a shootout. Kuznetsov’s goal – Washington’s first shot on net in more than 10 minutes – sparked the momentum with three-tenths of a second left in the middle period. Lars Eller’s shorty and two goals from Kempny in less than three minutes equalized; Backstrom defeated his buddy Jacob Markstrom to give the Caps a highly improbable 6-5 shootout victory.

Carlson and Alex Ovechkin each scored two goals in the travel finale in Toronto, with Ovechkin scoring the equalizer in the third and winning on a power play in overtime. Carlson and Ovechkin combined for 17 shots on goal, more than half of Washington’s 33 total. Ovechkin had four points and Backstrom had three assists on the night.

A two-game homestand awaited the Caps. On November 1, they defeated Buffalo 6-1, cooling off the 9-2-2 Sabres. Vrana scored two of the Caps’ four goals in the first period and Kempny had three assists.

Two nights later, the Caps hosted the Calgary Flames and the newly crowned World Series champion Washington Nationals. The 4-2 win over the Flames was fun — Vrana’s first career hat trick was game-changing — but the Nationals’ celebration also provided plenty of entertainment.

The Nats hung out with the Caps before the game and read out the starting lineups, celebrated with the Caps afterward, posed for an epic pregame photo of the two teams together on the ice and skated between the second on the Olympic ice rink – without jerseys and third period and generally led the grand and celebratory lives of newly crowned world champions.

On November 7, the Caps traveled to South Florida for a game against the Panthers. There they turned a 3-1 deficit into a 5-4 overtime win behind two goals each from Ovechkin and Wilson. Wilson equalized in the first minute of the third period and won in the first minute of overtime.

Washington returned home and won its fifth straight home game against Vegas 5-2 on November 9th. Backstrom scored two goals in the third period to secure the decisive victory.

Ovechkin, Carlson, Wilson and Vrana all had a big impact on the previous five-game home winning streak, and the 2018 Cup winners’ quartet have also left their collective handprints on the current streak.

The current series is also triggered by two younger Caps who were drafted in Vancouver a few months before this series began: Connor McMichael and Aliaksei Protas.

Time moves on.

In the networks – Looking for his fifth win in as many starts, Logan Thompson scores for Washington tonight. Thompson is 4-0-0 with a 3.21 GAA and .876 save percentage. In his four starts so far this season, Thompson has only scored one goal that put the Caps behind on the scoreboard, and that was a goal by Erik Haula at 4:45 of the first period on Oct. 19 in New Jersey , that… gave the Devils a 1-0 lead. That lead was erased 76 seconds later by a goal from Tom Wilson.

Lifetime against the Blue Jackets, Thompson is 1-1-0 in three appearances (two starts), with a 3.46 GAA and .892 save percentage.

Elvis Merzlikins started and went the distance in Friday night’s home loss to Winnipeg, giving Daniil Tarasov the start in Washington in the back half of the Jackets’ first meeting of the season. Columbus’ two goaltenders have split starts so far this season, and Tarasov enters tonight’s game 3-1-1 in five starts on the season, with a 3.42 GAA and .886 save percentage.

In two career appearances – both starts – against the Capitals, Tarasov is 1-1-0 with a 3.94 GAA and .882 save percentage.

Everything lined up – Here’s what we expect the Capitals and Blue Jackets to look like when they take the ice in the district late Saturday afternoon:

WASHINGTON

Forward

21-Protas, 17-Strome, 8-Ovechkin

24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson

13-Vrana, 29-Lapierre, 88-Mangiapane

22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 16-Raddysh

defender

42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson

27-Alexeyev, 57-van Riemsdyk

38-Sandin, 52-McIlrath

goalkeeper

48-Thompson

79-Lindgren

Extras

2-Iorio

15-Milan

23-Sgarbossa

Lost/injured

3-Roy (lower body)

6-Chychrun (upper body)

19-Backstrom (Hip)

77-Oshie (back)

COLUMBUS

Forward

59-Chinakhov, 23-Monahan, 86-Marchenko

4-Sillinger, 19-Fantilli, 82-Pyyhtia

27-Aston Reese, 17-Danforth, 24-Olivier

10-Voronkov, 7-Kuraly, 62-Labanc

defender

8-Verensky, 9-Provorov

2-Christiansen, 78-Severson

3-y. Johnson, 55-Jiricek

goalkeeper

40-Tarasov

90-Merzlikins

Extras

21-y. van Riemsdyk

22-Harris

Lost/injured

38-Jenner (upper body)

44-Gudbranson (upper body)

45-Brindley (fingers)

91-K. Johnson (upper body)