Spencer Carbery says Capitals need to turn back into a tight checking team that takes pride in winning games 1-0: 'This is not the team from last year. It's just not.'

"At the end of the day, we're just making too many big mistakes. I mean, I sound like a broken record, but that's just the reality of it. We're making massive, massive mistakes. And it's throughout, you know, you just can't in this league, it's just too competitive. You just cannot give free goals. And that's what we're doing too much."

"I think there's a lot of things going on that we're just making too many blunders that we can't cover up for. We're just going to have to tighten up. Like, I think what we're going back to is, this is not the team from last year. It's just not. And so if we keep thinking that we are and keep banging our heads against the wall and coming up short and go, 'Why aren't we the team from last year? What's going on? What happened?' Instead of realizing, 'Listen, we might have to go back to a team two years ago that just checked and just didn't give teams anything.'"

The Washington Capitals have lost four straight games and sit 12th in the Eastern Conference, four points outside the final playoff spot. Teams ahead hold one or two games in hand and the Capitals rank 14th of 16 in the conference by points percentage. The club is committing frequent, large mistakes and conceding unnecessary goals, undermining competitiveness. A recent 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks marked a low point against a team that had been in an extended slump and struggled at home. The Capitals plan to tighten defensively and consider returning to an earlier, checking-focused identity to reduce errors.

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