The Washington Capitals bid to keep their slim postseason hopes alive when they open a three-game road trip at the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday.
The Blues (28-30-11, 67 points) also remain on the fringes of playoff contention and will be opening a three-game homestand.
Washington (35-27-9, 79 points) opens its trip six points behind the New York Islanders for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference. The good news for the Capitals is that they are on a five-game point streak (3-0-2). The bad news is that there are three teams between Washington and New York, and all have at least one game in hand on the Capitals.
In addition, Washington continues to have trouble scoring, totaling two goals or less in five of its past six games. On Sunday, Alex Ovechkin’s third-period tally got the Capitals a point in a 3-2 overtime loss to the visiting Colorado Avalanche.
Justin Sourdif also scored and Logan Thompson made 21 saves.
“I think we play a solid game,” Ovechkin said. “Obviously, it sucks that we lost, but right now every point we’ll take it. We played one of the best teams in the league and you can see that we fight and it was a tight game.”
Washington took a 1-0 lead into the third period before a pair of turnovers led to two Colorado goals.
“They also make some mistakes as well that give us opportunities, too,” coach Spencer Carbery said. “Mistakes happen in a game for both teams, and so we just make a few that end up in the back of our net, but so did they. We just didn’t do quite enough.”
St. Louis is eight points behind Nashville for the second wild card in the Western Conference, but with four teams between the Blues and Predators.
The Blues have earned points in nine of their last 10 games (7-1-2) after a 3-1 victory at Vancouver on Saturday. Pavel Buchnevich scored a goal and added an assist, while Pius Suter and Jordan Kyrou also found the net. Suter and Buchnevich scored within a 1:19 span in the second period, and Kyrou added an empty-net goal after Vancouver closed to 2-1.
“We’re trying to play to our identity,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “We won a lot of puck battles, we were able to spend a lot of time in the O-zone, and we feel if we continue to play to that identity, our team confidence and growth is going to expand.”
Logan Mailloux had two assists, and Jordan Binnington made 14 saves.
“We had a good first two periods and the third period wasn’t perfect,” Binnington said. “We did find a way to win, and in the end find a way to get that empty-net goal. But our focus is getting better and better, and I think for the majority of the game today, we did that.”
Thompson is 6-0-1 with a 2.26 goals-against-average (GAA) and a .913 save percentage versus the Blues. Binnington is 1-3-1 with a 4.23 GAA and an .840 save percentage against the Capitals, while backup Joel Hofer is 2-0-0 with a 2.39 GAA and a .913 save percentage versus Washington.
Ovechkin scored his 900th career goal against Binnington and the visiting Blues in a 6-1 win on Nov. 5.
