Oct. 28 vs. Philadelphia Flyers at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: TNT, HBO MAX, TruTV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio Network
Philadelphia Flyers (3-7-4)
Washington Capitals (6-4-0)
The Caps conclude their season-long five-game homestand and start a midweek set of back-to-back games on Wednesday night when they host the Philadelphia Flyers. Immediately after the game with Philly, the Caps are off to Music City for a Thursday night date with the Nashville Predators.
While Washington is playing its fifth game in 15 nights tonight against the Flyers, Philadelphia is playing its seventh game in the same span. The Caps enter Wednesday’s game having lived life like an NFL team for the last week; they’ve been at home the entire time and they’ve played one game in a span of seven days.
That one game was Saturday’s 4-3 overtime victory over the Buffalo Sabres, a win in which former Sabre Alex Tuch bit the hand that once fed him, bookending a pair of goals – including the game-winner – around a pair of second-period strikes from Dylan Strome. The Caps improved to 5-2-0 on home ice with Saturday’s win; both losses came at the hands of Western Conference opposition.
After taking Sunday off, the Caps had a pair of practices in preparation for the Flyers, and to give their ailing players a bit of healing time. Goaltender Logan Thompson missed Saturday’s game with a lower body injury, but he was a full participant at Tuesday’s practice session, though it’s too soon to tell whether he will be ready to return to action against Philly.
“Good sign,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of Thompson. “I’ll talk to [head athletic trainer Jason Serbus] and then we’ll make a game plan for [Wednesday].”
Defenseman Jakob Chychrun took a maintenance day on Monday, but he was a full participant in Tuesday’s session. Carbery expects the defenseman to be ready to roll for Wednesday’s Metro Division match with the Flyers.
The NHL season began just under a month ago, and the Caps will head into Wednesday’s game with the Flyers with just 10 games under their collective belt; tied with Columbus for the fewest in the League.. Washington also enters Wednesday’s game having had half a dozen multi-day breaks between games this season, making it difficult to establish rhythm, find some flow, and to feel like hockey season is underway.
Washington will have six more multi-day breaks between now and the end of November. They will have eight such breaks – aside from the NHL’s holiday and All-Star pauses, which every team shares – from Dec. 1 through the season finale next April 10.
Washington will play just 24 games across the season’s first 63 days, and it will play its last 24 games in a comparatively breakneck span of 45 days.
“I haven’t liked it at all, to be honest with you,” says Carbery of his team’s early season slate. “I feel like it’s Seattle and then you wait, and then L.A. and then Jersey; it’s tough to get into a rhythm. And then you sit for a few days. Especially when you lose a game like the L.A. game [on Oct. 20], and you’re just like, ‘Can we play already?’
“And then even now, you have a good game – it works both ways – you play well on Saturday, and you’re like, ‘Let’s go! Let’s keep this momentum going. And so, it’s not ideal, but it’s just the way that the chips fell, so we’ve just got to do the best we can with it. And now we’ll play a back-to-back. The focus though is [Wednesday] night on Philly.”
Missing defensemen Rasmus Sandin (offseason knee surgery) and Vincent Desharnais (appendectomy), the Caps can at least take some comfort in those players missing fewer games than they might have with a more front-loaded schedule. And they’re getting more practice time and reps than many of their peers around the League.
“Yes and no,” answers Carbery, queried as to whether the practice time is useful coming off a dramatically shortened training camp. “I’ve felt like we’ve had some really productive video sessions, meaning a little bit of practice time. But these guys are in game mode. The practices are the practices; we’re definitely trying to zero in on certain things that we want to get accomplished.
“But at the same time, these guys are preparing for Philly and even [Tuesday] is just like, ‘Okay, let’s get a few things out of this. Let’s get some special teams, let’s get some breakout routes and get ourselves ready,’ physically more so [since] we’re going to walk into a back-to-back with some travel. We’re going to have to be physically and mentally prepared for the next 48 hours; it’s going to be a grind.”
Washington faces Philly for the first of four times in the regular season, and the Caps catch the Flyers on the second night of back-to-back games; Philly hosts Columbus on Tuesday night.
“It's not ideal, but everybody's going to go through it,” says Caps forward Boone Jenner. “And at this point, I think it could be beneficial, and you’ve got to look at it that way. We get a couple extra days of practice to nail down some details that we still think we can be better at in our game.
“It doesn't matter us playing back-to-back or playing against the team coming in on a back-to-back. I think it's about what we're going to do, what we're willing to put into the game to get the result we want. And I think we've been on the back ends of back-to-backs as well and for us it's trying to take these practice days to get something out of it, because you know the games are going to start picking up. So, try to get the most out of this, use it to get your body feeling good and get our games back.”
For the Flyers, Wednesday’s game in Washington is the lone road game in a stretch of five contests. Philly dropped both games of a two-game homestand, falling 4-3 in overtime to Columbus on Tuesday night. In that game, the Flyers spotted the Blue Jackets a 3-0 first period lead, yielding three goals in less than three minutes. But Philadelphia chipped away, scoring twice in the third period to force overtime.
Flyers goalie Dan Vladar stiffened after the first against the Jackets, making every save until Kent Johnson’s second goal of the game on a 2-on-0 rush – in overtime. Vladar made a dazzling stop on an earlier 2-on-0 in the extra session.
The Caps are likely to face ex-Leafs goaltender Joseph Woll on Wednesday in Washington.
