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Capitals look to bounce back against Flames

Mar 12, 2008 - 1:19 PM Calgary (36-23-10) at Washington (32-30-8) 7:00 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Ticker) - The Washington Capitals need to turn things around immediately to reach the playoffs.

They can begin that turnaround with a victory over the red-hot Calgary Flames on Wednesday.

The Capitals endured a pair of horrific defeats over the weekend and are currently out of the Eastern Conference playoff chase - seven points out of eighth place and seven back of Southeast Division-leading Carolina (37-29-5).

"If you're looking at Carolina, they're seven ahead of us right now," Capitals' coach Bruce Boudreau said. "We have two games against them, one in hand, those three you have to win and hope a little bit. You gotta believe there's a chance they're going to lose a game before the end of the year."

The Capitals lost a late 1-0 lead on Saturday as the Boston Bruins rallied 2-1 victory. On Sunday, the team lost the chance to gain a point when Pittsburgh Penguins' star Sidney Crosby scored in the final minute to break a 2-2 tie, lifting the his squad to a 4-2 win.

The Penguins' game-winning goal actually came off the the stick of Washington's Nicklas Backstrom, who accidental shot the puck into his own goal while trying to clear the puck from the goal mouth.

Washington has dominated the Flames of late, posting a 5-0-0 record with two ties in the last seven meetings.

Calgary is 7-1-2 in its last 10 games, including Monday's 7-3 victory over St. Louis.

In his last eight starts, Flames' goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff is 5-1-2 with two shutouts and a 1.62 goals-against average.