ARLINGTON V.a. (DC News Now) – The Washington Capitals closed out the year 2022 in dominant fashion.

In the month of December, the Caps won 11 of 15 games. That’s on top of Alex Ovechkin passing Gordie Howe to hold the record for the second-most career goals in NHL history. Washington is heating up at the right time.

“Obviously a really good month, I think,” says Conor Sheary. “We’re starting to find our game and started to play a lot of good hockey and obviously started stacking up some wins and moving up in the standings.”

After a rocky start to the year, and several injuries, the Capitals fought through adversity and now sit third in the metropolitan division, and sixth in the eastern conference. Turning their season around can be credited to their improvements on all fronts, especially on defense, according to an outside perspective from T.J. Oshie, who’s been out with an upper-body injury since December 18th, 2022.

“The commitment is elite right now I think defensively and it’s got to stay there if we want to continue to climb out of the hole we dug ourselves in. We are in a good spot now but we want to keep moving up.”

Additionally, the Caps are eyeing the return of right-wing Tom Wilson and center Nicklas Backstrom, who have missed most of the season due to injuries. Head coach Peter Laviolette likes what he sees in their progress at practice.

“They’re working, they look good to me. They’re really skating hard and working hard over here. They’re moving in the right direction.”