SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes From Caps' Morning Skate

Rule The Road - The Caps open up a three-game western road trip on Thursday night in Tempe against the Arizona Coyotes. Coming into tonight's game, the Caps have won eight of their last nine games on the road, including a franchise record seven-game road winning streak from Dec.5, 2022 to Jan. 5, 2023.

Six of Washington's eight wins over its last nine road games were achieved in regulation, and the Caps outscored the opposition by a combined total of 39-20 in those last nine games away from the District. Starting with tonight's tilt against the Coyotes, the Caps will play five of their next six games on the road between now and the beginning of the All-Star break/bye week that starts on Feb. 1. The Caps will play six of their next seven overall on the road; their first game back from the break is on Feb. 11 in Boston.
New Way Home --Thursday's game marks the Caps' first ever visit to Mullett Arena, the Coyotes' new - and temporary - home. Mullett Arena is on the campus of Arizona State University and it seats 5,000 for ASU hockey games, but seating is capped at 4,600 for NHL games here.
Early reviews from the Caps following Thursday's morning skate were positive.
"The ice felt unbelievable," exudes Caps forward Marcus Johansson. "The ice is really good. I don't know if it's because it's a smaller rink or what, but the ice felt great. It was great to skate on. So I think it will be a fast-paced game out there, and I'm looking forward to that, it's going to be a lot of fun."
The captain concurs.
"I think it's going to be weird obviously, but the ice was good," says Alex Ovechkin. "I hope it's going to be sold out, and we're going to have some fun."
It's small, intimate, and with a low ceiling, should be quite loud.
"They did a great job with the locker room setup for NHL teams coming in here," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "It seemed great out there this morning; the ice was good. It's compact, and when you put a lot of people in a compact building, it can be really, really good. I'm excited to play the game tonight."
Going to the same cities on the circuit and staying in the same hotels can get stale after a while, so it can be refreshing to be able to check out a different area or region of a city. After a flight of nearly five hours in duration on Wednesday, the Caps' traveling party went out wandering last night and found a lot to like.
"I think it's fun to come into a new building," says Laviolette. "Tempe seems really nice, and just around the hotel and the restaurants, it seemed like there was good life in the area. Everything is close bay; the hotel is close by, the airport is close by and everything has been great so far."
The Caps conducted their morning skate here on Thursday, and Laviolette noticed one thing that could prove to be a bit funky about Mullett Arena.
"We'll probably talk to the goalies," says Laviolette. "The stanchions are a little bit different, and I saw one puck that was going wide stop and come back into the same corner. So it's more of a heads-up for goaltenders that when you rim pucks, you've really got to be careful getting out of the net because something could happen. So that was a little bit different, but other than that, most rinks have good, lively end boards if you wanted to try and run something. But the stanchions are the one thing that stood out to me, just to be careful on the rimmed pucks for the goalies."
Upon moving from Winnipeg to Phoenix and becoming the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996-97, the team played its home games at America West Arena, a basketball facility in downtown Phoenix. That arrangement lasted for six and a half seasons, until the Glendale Arena (later known as Jobing.com Arena and Gila River Arena, and now Desert Diamond Arena) opened late in calendar 2003. The Coyotes played their first game in their new Glendale barn on Dec. 27, 2003, and they played there through the end of last season.
The Coyotes played their first ever game at Mullett Arena on Oct. 28, 2022, dropping a 3-2 overtime decision to the Winnipeg Jets (2.0). Thus far this season, the Coyotes are 8-6-2 in their new building.
Keep On Moving -It's been a while since the Caps have started a game with the same forward line combinations as in their previous game, but that will be the case tonight in Tempe against the Coyotes. Alex Alexeyev draws back into the lineup tonight on the blueline, but the forward lines remain the same as they were from Tuesday's 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild in Washington, a game in which the Caps were playing for the second time in as many nights against a fresh and rested Minnesota squad.
"Coming off that back-to-back game, again I don't like the score," says Laviolette. "But I thought our guys played hard coming off that back-to-back and they competed and really pushed the entire night. By all measures except the scoreboard, the game was done the right way. And so we're putting the same group back in there to get this game done the right way, and hopefully the scoreboard matches at the end of the night."
Most of that Tuesday game against Minnesota was played at even strength, and Washington held a 72-48 advantage in shot attempts at all strengths at night's end. The difference was 67-44 at even strength, and according to naturalstattrick.com, the Caps had 20 high danger scoring chances at even strength, as compared to just five for the Wild.
"If we keep playing like that, we should win a lot of games," says Johansson. "There's some small details that I think you could maybe improve on and change a little bit, things that may not have gone our way, but overall, we've played some good hockey and we've got to keep that up."
Washington had a lackluster first period on Monday in New York, but it has followed with five excellent frames since.
"Just in the last two games, I thought the last five periods were the way we want to play," says Laviolette. "We got rewarded one game and we didn't the next, and so we move on. And that happens sometimes, but I feel like if you play the game as tight defensively as we did - and there's a couple things we could clean up with boxing out some guys - everything was to the perimeter.
"I thought we did a good job defensively, and the [offensive] zone time and generating offense, I thought we were on point in trying to get it done and we just could not tie it up there in the third period, and guys pressed the whole time. But again, the effort was there for me from start to finish on a back-to-back game against a good team from the West that was fresh. We're going to put the same group back in there."
In The Nets -Ex-Coyote Darcy Kuemper will be in net for Washington tonight. In his most recent start, Kuemper stopped 27 of 30 New York shots in a 4-3 overtime win over the Islanders this past Monday night. In his last 14 starts dating back to Nov. 23, Kuemper is 8-2-3 with three shutouts, a 2.26 GAA and a .927 save pct.
Lifetime against his former employers, Kuemper is 5-1-3 with three shutouts, a 1.32 GAA and a .947 save pct. in nine appearances.
For the Coyotes, Karel Vejmelka will be in goal tonight. Despite leading the NHL with 32 losses (13-32-3) as a rookie last season, Vejmelka kept the Coyotes in a fair number of the 49 games he started last season. He has shown improvement as a sophomore too, posting an 11-16-4 record to date with two shutouts, a 3.33 GAA and a .902 save pct. in 32 appearances (31 starts).
Vejmelka has been excellent in his three career starts against Washington. Although he has a 1-2-0 record in those starts, Vejmelka has yielded only four goals in those three games, with just two of the four coming at even strength. He owns a 1.34 GAA and a .958 career save pct. against the Capitals.
All Lined Up - Here's how we believe the Capitals and Coyotes might look on Thursday night when the Caps make their first ever visit to Mullett Arena in Tempe:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 96-Aube-Kubel
15-Milano, 19-Backstrom, 43-Wilson
73-Sheary, 20-Eller, 77-Oshie
90-Johansson, 92-Kuznetsov, 21-Hathaway
Defensemen
56-Gustafsson, 57-van Riemsdyk
9-Orlov, 3-Jensen
27-Alexeyev, 42-Fehervary
Goaltenders
35-Kuemper
79-Lindgren
Healthy Extras
39-Mantha
52-Irwin
59-Protas
Injured
26-Dowd (lower body)
28-Brown (lower body)
62-Hagelin (hip)
74-Carlson (upper body)
ARIZONA
Forwards
9-Keller, 29-Hayton, 8-Schmaltz
67-Crouse, 17-Bjugstad, 11-Guenther
12-N. Ritchie, 22-McBain, 36-Fischer
72-Boyd, 44-Kassian
Defensemen
6-Chychrun, 14-Gostisbehere
4-Valimaki, 51-Stecher
2-Nemeth, 90-Moser
3-Brown,
Goaltenders
70-Vejmelka
39-Ingram
Healthy Extras
None
Injured
16-Ladd (knee)
38-O'Brien (upper body)
63-Maccelli (lower body)