Caps Take on Canes in Exhibition Clash

July 26, 2020 vs. Carolina Hurricanes at ScotiaBank Arena in Toronto

Time: 4 p.m.

TV: NBCSW

Radio: 1500 AM

Some four and a half months after they last suited up against another NHL opponent, the Capitals will take on the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday afternoon in the lone exhibition tune-up for both teams ahead of the League's return to play, which is essentially the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs with a couple of different wrinkles.

Washington was ousted from the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs on April 24, 2019, losing a decisive Game 7 in double overtime to the Canes in D.C. After their longest offseason in five years, the Caps returned to action on Sept. 16 of last year in a preseason tilt against Chicago. The Caps' 2019 summer offseason lasted 164 days.

When they take the ice against Carolina on Wednesday, the Capitals will do so for the first time in 141 days, just a few weeks shy of their entire offseason from a year ago. After playing their final regular season game ahead of the pandemic on March 9 in Buffalo, the Caps reconvened for training camp at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on July 13, and they departed the District for the bubble city of Toronto, where 12 Eastern Conference clubs are being housed for the first couple rounds of the playoffs. A dozen Western Conference clubs are going through the same process in the western bubble city of Edmonton.

Each team gets one exhibition game and then starting on Aug. 1, the process of whittling those 24 teams down to one Stanley Cup champion begins in earnest. A Cup champion is expected to be crowned no later than Oct. 4.

The Caps and the other 11 Eastern clubs arrived in Toronto on Sunday, and after practicing on Monday and Tuesday, they're set to take on Carolina in their only dress rehearsal prior to starting a three-game round robin - against Tampa Bay, Philadelphia and Boston - to determine their seeding for the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, which are tentatively scheduled to get underway on Aug. 11.

"I think we're all looking forward to getting in a real game-like situation," says Caps right wing Garnet Hathaway of Wednesday's warm-up contest against Carolina. "Even though it's an exhibition, we haven't played a game in almost 140 days or something like that. I think just going through the routine will be nice - getting that game day routine with a warm-up and getting familiar with it."

The Caps conducted a couple of intrasquad scrimmages during their MedStar training camp, but players don't hit their own teammates or lay out to block teammates' shots with the same intensity they would in the regular season or the playoffs, so Wednesday's game should aid in returning some familiar routines and feelings.

And while most regular season and many playoff games are night games with a 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. local start time, that won't always be the case here in the round robin and into the playoffs. Teams and players will have to deal with different and unusual start times, like the 4 p.m. puck drop in Wednesday.

"I think for every team, we're going through an adjustment period," says Caps defenseman Brenden Dillon, "to the [bubble] lifestyle, to the everyday [routine], practicing, to games. Some unique times you know, with the 4 p.m. starts, some earlier and some later."

For Dillon and Ilya Kovalchuk - both of whom were obtained in February ahead of the NHL's trade deadline - the MedStar camp, the exhibition game and the week of preparations in Toronto will help them to assimilate their new team's systems and style of play.

"I've been in D.C. and I've been skating with the guys," says Dillon. "I've gotten to be more comfortable and familiar - whether it's with the systems or just getting to know your teammates a little bit more. During the regular season, when the trade deadline happens, things go so quickly. I think for myself and Kovy, we both felt a lot more comfortable having a training camp and being able to - whether it's your linemates or your teammates - feel more and more like a Cap."

The Caps and Carolina last clashed on Jan. 13 in Washington, when Caps goaltender Ilya Samsonov blanked the Canes on 23 shots for his first career NHL shutout. The two Metropolitan Division rivals split four regular season meetings, with the Caps claiming an extra point by forcing overtime in the first of their two losses.

While the Caps are playing their three round robin games, the Hurricanes will be enmeshed in a best-of-five "play-in" series against the New York Rangers. The Blueshirts swept Carolina during the four-game regular season series between the two clubs.

After making the playoffs for the first time in a decade in 2019, the Canes nudged the defending champion Caps out in the first round and they swept the Islanders away in the second round. But they ran into the Boston buzzsaw in the Eastern Conference Final; the Bruins went on to the Cup Final where they fell to St. Louis in seven.

Since the Caps last saw them more than six months ago, Carolina has added defensemen Sami Vatanen and Brady Skjei in deadline deals and it got greybeard winger Justin Williams back in the fold as well. Ex-Cap Williams, who was a member of Carolina's 2006 Cup championship team, sat out the early months of the season before signing a deal to return to the Hurricanes in mid-January.