Washington Capitals need some late-season magic to earn playoff spot

The Washington Capitals’ playoff chances took a big hit after a 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday, and now they no longer control their own fate in the race for one of the two remaining playoff spots in the Eastern Conference. With a tough schedule remaining against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers, the Caps have their work cut out for them.

Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli talked about the missed opportunity for the Capitals and what their playoff chances look like in the final week of the regular season on Daily Faceoff Live.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Last night was a massive missed opportunity for the Caps. They go into the evening in the driver’s seat in the sense that they control their own fate, but they go to bed last night no longer having that luxury.

Frank Seravalli: Yeah and that’s really tough especially losing to a non-playoff team. If you’ve been paying attention to what I’ve been saying for the last number of weeks, I love the way the Buffalo Sabres have played since January 1st. We’re talking about a 93-point pace for the Sabres, which this year would get you in. Unfortunately, they don’t award playoff spots based on half of the season played, and so the Sabres have some work to do.

But what a missed opportunity for this Cap’s team. We talked earlier in the week, they beat Detroit and they found a way to come through just when you count them out. I’m certainly not willing to declare them dead by any stretch of the imagination, but that is certainly a damaging loss in their playoff hopes.

And who knows, maybe the Caps get through this three-games in four-night stretch on Tuesday night against the Flyers, and maybe the Flyers are dummied by then, and then you have an opportunity heading into that final game.

We talk about their schedule not being a walk in the park, some of the teams that had non-playoff teams down the stretch last year, that’s what ended up crippling them. It wasn’t the games against some of the upper echelon teams or playoff-bound teams like you see with the Caps schedule with the Lightning and Bruins. But it’s not going to be easy, and I said yesterday, it’s kind of fitting that it’s seemingly going to come down to Caps or Pens for that eighth seed.

You can watch the full episode here…