WASHINGTON (AP) Carolina is a long shot to make the playoffs. Coach Bill Peters is still looking for a strong finish for the Hurricanes.Justin Faulk scored midway through the second period Pat Tillman Jersey Limited , and Carolina beat the Washington Capitals 4-1 on Friday night to remain in the postseason race.It was the fourth win in five games for the Hurricanes, who haven’t made the playoffs since 2009. Carolina must win its final four games while Florida and New Jersey lose their remaining games in regulation to play beyond the regular season.Asked if the playoffs were a realistic goal, Peters answered tersely: ”No.” But Peters believes there are genuine incentives for his team.”You’ve got to play,” he said. ”These guys are pros. You’re paid to play.”Metropolitan Division-leading Washington had won five in a row. Michal Kempny scored his first goal with the Capitals after he was acquired in a February trade with Chicago.”We’ve been playing great the last month,” Capitals forward Devante Smith-Pelly said. ”I don’t want to say this was expected, but a game like this maybe was going to happen eventually. It was probably better tonight than Sunday.”Washington visits Pittsburgh on Sunday, and the teams have a long history.”Overall, obviously we don’t like those guys,” Smith-Pelly said. ”It’s a huge game. We’ll be back.”Carolina goaltender Scott Darling stopped 20 shots, and Braden Holtby had 26 saves for Washington.Capitals coach Barry Trotz thought his team was simply outplayed.”This league is way too good if you have a little bit of an off-night or you’re not on your `A’ game, this league can humble you in a very hard way and a quick way,” Trotz said. ”We didn’t have enough invested. We didn’t have enough guys pulling on the rope.”Kempny put the Capitals in front at 2:35 of the second, but Carolina’s Derek Ryan quickly responded. He beat Holtby for his 14th goal at 3:15.”There’s pride on the line,” Ryan said. ”We’re not quite in the playoff race. We’re not eliminated, but we realize where we’re at. We’re just continuing to play our game. We’re not thinking about it. We have four games, so we’re going to make those games count.”Faulk’s eighth goal of the season put the Hurricanes ahead to stay at 11:43. It was Faulk’s first goal since he scored three times in a 7-3 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Feb. 13.Sebastian Aho’s 28th goal at 14:36 of the third made it 3-1, and Brock McGinn added an empty-netter at 17:50.NOTES: Trotz said he enjoyed the story of emergency goalie Scott Foster’s outstanding performance for Chicago on Thursday night. Trotz doesn’t know who the Capitals’ emergency goalies are. ”I just know that we have them,” Trotz said. ”Someone has a phone book with numbers. If you need a goalie, you start phoning. … I’d like to meet them, just not on our bench.” … Washington F Lars Eller played in his 600th career game. . Capitals F T.J. Oshie, who had an assist on Kempny’s goal, logged just 14 minutes of playing time, his lowest since Dec. 30. Trotz said Oshie was being checked for an injury, but wouldn’t comment on its specifics. … Carolina D Jaccob Slavin had two assists.UP NEXTHurricanes: Host New York Rangers on SaturdayCapitals: Visit Pittsburgh on Sunday— COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) The Columbus Blue Jackets got plenty of lucky breaks in their surprisingly successful 2016-17 season.Serious injuries were avoided, their power play was one of the NHL’s best, and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky won the Vezina Trophy. Pucks bounced the Blue Jackets’ way more often than not as they piled up a 16-game winning streak and earned a playoff spot, just one season removed from a last-place finish in the Metropolitan Division.Good fortune has been a little bit harder to come by this season for the Blue Jackets http://www.arizonacardinalsteamonline.com/pat-tillman-jersey , who are in danger of fading out of the playoff picture in the Metro. Injuries have taken some of the team’s best players out of action for big chunks of time. The power-play is worst in the league. The penalty-kill is only slightly better.”We’re spoiled because of the year we had last year when everything went our way, we got breaks, we were healthy, a lot of things went our way,” said Columbus coach John Tortorella after the Blue Jackets outshot Washington 39-25 on Tuesday night but lost the game when Nicklas Backstrom scored with 43 seconds left.”As I’ve always said, we forced them to go our way for the most part, but you do get some luck in a year,” he said. ”We had a ton of it. We’ve got (crap) for luck right now.”Forwards Cam Atkinson, Brandon Dubinsky, Nick Foligno and Boone Jenner – players expected to be top goal scorers – all were slow to get started. Atkinson just got back on the ice after missing a month with a broken foot. A fractured orbital bone sustained in a fight Dec. 12 sidelined Dubinsky for six weeks. He just got back in the lineup, scoring the tying goal in the third period Tuesday night.Jenner missed the first seven games of the season with an injury. Center Alexander Wennberg and defenseman Zach Werenski also have been out with hurts.Those players were expected to shoulder the load. Instead it’s been wingers Artemi Panarin, Josh Anderson and Oliver Bjorkstrand, as well as all-star defenseman Seth Jones. Their production has kept the Blue Jackets in playoff contention, but every other team in the Metro Division is within reach, too.Bobrovsky is eighth in the league in wins, and his .920 save percentage is down from the cumulative .931 of last season. Columbus has lost four straight and nine of the last 11, but Tortorella sees progress.”It’s been that way most of the year here, where things just haven’t totally gone our way in games,” he said. ”Somehow we’ve got to have the wherewithal to keep finding ourselves, keep staying with it, and turn these games into wins and try to get on a run.”On Tuesday, the Blue Jackets moved the puck effectively and went hard at Washington goalie Braden Holtby in a 3-2 loss that Tortorella described as ”a kick in the stomach.””We were around the net a lot,” Jones said. ”A bounce here and a bounce there is a couple more goals for us.”Columbus will get another crack at the Capitals in Washington on Friday night. Six of the next seven games are against Metro Division rivals, so that stretch is likely to determine whether the Blue Jackets will return to the playoffs. There haven’t been back-to-back playoff years in the 18-year history of the franchise.”It’s a grind,” Dubinsky said. ”It’s a long season. Nobody said it was going to be easy for us. It’s hard right now, not getting the results. I think we’re putting in some good minutes. We just have to come to work tomorrow with our heads up and be ready and willing to get better.”—