Capitals' road about to get much more difficult

When the Washington Capitals take the ice Saturday for a matinee tilt against the Florida Panthers, it will be the 11th time in 13 games the Caps have been on home ice in just over the last month, and 11th out of 15 overall this regular season.

The scheduling quirk to start the year has meant the Capitals haven't had a multiple-game road trip since the first two games of the regular season, and also had 3 homestands with 3 or more games already in the under-renovation Capital One Arena.

However, despite that built-in advantage to the schedule for a fast start, the Capitals are now just 6-4-0 at home so far with a pair of losses heading into the last of this three-game homestand.

And, with American Thanksgiving just 3 weeks away and the NHL standings on that date being a decent indicator of who makes the playoff cut, Washington enters play Thursday 4 points out of a spot and tied for 12th in the Eastern Conference.

The Capitals' next three-game homestand doesn't come along until mid-January, and 4 of Washington's next 6 games overall come on the road.

Home ice has proven important to Washington the last few years, and this year figures to be no different. 

Despite missing the playoffs last season, the Capitals went 25-11-5 at home, with the reason they narrowly missed the playoffs being a sub-.500 road record at 18-19-4.

Clearly, this season, with the slower start at home, Washington is going to need to play much better on the road if they want to return to the postseason for the 3rd time in 4 years.

Washington is 2-2-0 away from home so far this year, and 1-1-0 in the last month of play, losing in Raleigh but picking up 2 points in Nashville.

While the road trips can help build team chemistry, the frequent flier miles are going to rack up quickly and wear and tear of a grueling month-and-a-half loom.

11 of Washington's next 16 games are going to be in the road white sweaters, with a two-game road trip next week to Ottawa and Newark, and then a season-high six game road swing through Alberta, the Pacific Northwest and stops in Denver and Dallas before a 16-day gap between home games.

The emotions of the Alex Ovechkin farewell tour will begin to really kick in as well, as the next two weeks features the Capitals captain's final visits to Tampa and St. Louis, and then the entire Western road trip will mean 7 straight farewell games after just 2 so far this season.

While the chase of Wayne Gretzky's record in 2025 was a media frenzy in itself, Ovechkin's first visit to Canada this season as well as final stops in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver certainly will garner more than the usual mid-December road trip media crowds and fan reaction.

The Caps came into this season with an advantage to build a quick start on a heavy home schedule, and they really haven't been able to do so, so now, they have to prove they are a better team on the road, as otherwise, they will have another dogfight to get in the playoffs.