The Washington Capitals aren't sugarcoating the situation. Monday wasn't an easy night for the Capitals in Columbus, as they watched Tyson Foerster, Dan Vladar and the Philadelphia Flyers end their playoff hopes with a shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes. "You’re not going to get to play the fun hockey, I guess they call it. Just disappointing obviously, and sucks that it had to end that way," Dylan Strome said. Tuesday's morning skate wasn't any easier, as they prepare to close out the year against the Columbus Blue Jackets in a game that went from high-stakes with implications to meaningless in the scheme of the final standings. "You’re in a little bit of shock and just, like you said, extremely, extremely disappointed of not being able to play in the playoffs," coach Spencer Carbery, who won the Jack Adams last season, said. "That's as simply put as I can make it. There’s no way to make it sound any better than it is." Washington was atop the East earlier in the season, but in November, lost top-6 center Pierre-Luc Dubois to injury earlier in the season. Then, in December and January, Ryan Leonard and Tom Wilson got hurt and missed key stretches as the team slipped down the standings, unable to find a consistent, winning lineup. Washington had been playing some strong hockey down the stretch and went 13-7-2 over the final 22 games of the season, posting the ninth-best points percentage in the league, to keep its playoff hopes alive and make up for its earlier struggles. "I thought we were playing really good hockey the last month or two and feeling good about our game and made a really good push to try and get in," Wilson said. Going into Tuesday's contest, the Capitals had 42 wins, and 36 of those came in regulation, better than the Flyers and rival Pittsburgh Penguins, who both clinched playoff spots. Ultimately, though, it wasn't enough. "We put ourselves in the position where this is what it came down to and it obviously sucks that it ends that way just based on the way we were playing recently, so it stings for sure," Strome said. “We all know what we signed up for at the beginning of the year… and at the end of the day you gotta win enough games and collect enough points to get in the playoffs, and we didn’t do that," Wilson noted. "That’s a failure on our part. That’s it, there’s nothing more to say about it. We had a good season. We won 42 games so far, or whatever, and usually that gets you in. But usually is not good enough this year, I guess.” That in itself put quite a bit into perspective, including what could have been if the team had won a handful of key decisions. “You think about some of the games that we blew away earlier in the season. Based on the how we were playing at the time and it really is crazy how much it comes down to every little single point, whether it’s in October, November, whenever it was," Strome added. "Obviously we didn’t have ea great December and January and couldn’t really bounce back from there. It’s something to learn from but obviously right now it stings.” This is the first time since 2023 and just the third time since 2014 that the Capitals haven't qualified for the playoffs, and for Wilson and D.C., it's a "crappy feeling." Going into this final game, though, even with no stakes to really play for, Washington is going to do what it can to get a win, especially with it potentially being Alex Ovechkin's last game in the NHL. “Everyone’s pros and we’re going to go out there and give it everything we got. This team’s built to do that... it’s the NHL and you never know when it’s going to be your last game," Strome said. "This team’s never going to be fully together again, which sucks. I expect the guys go put it all on the line tonight.”
