Following a pair of back-to-back exhibition matches on Sunday and Monday nights, the Caps took Tuesday off from the rigors of the rink. But they were back at it on Wednesday, reaching the midway mark of their 13-day training camp in the process.
With Caps captain Alex Ovechkin still sidelined with a lower body injury, Ivan Miroshnichenko was bumped up to Ovechkin’s slot on the left side of a line with Dylan Strome and Ryan Leonard. The 22-year-old Miroshnichenko also spent Wednesday’s session temping in the captain’s left dot office on Washington’s top power play unit.
“Just precautionary,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of the 41-year-old Ovechkin. “[He] didn’t quite feel right to practice today; he came out to give it a try, but we just want to be cautious with it at this point and not push it.”
Carbery also adds that Ovechkin’s ailment is a day-to-day thing, and it isn’t presenting as a long-term problem; they’re merely leaning toward the cautious side. The coach also notes that Miroshnichenko filling in today was a spur-of-the-moment decision for today’s practice.
“We’ll talk about that as a staff,” the coach relates. “I just made that in-practice adjustment just to get three guys on the red-[sweatered] line, but not definitively for game action. We’ll talk about that. But [he’s] definitely an option.”
Miroshnichenko was drafted four summers ago – with the 20th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft – and he begins his first post-entry-level contract this season, so there is sometimes a perception of him that he has been around for a while. But Miroshnichenko is still just 22 years old. He has been a valuable piece of a Calder Cup championship team in Hershey, and he has piled up 46 goals and 55 assists for 101 points in 146 regular season AHL contests. He has added a dozen goals and 20 points in 34 AHL playoff contests, too.
In 52 NHL games scattered across three seasons, Miroshnichenko has totaled five goals and eight assists for 13 points while averaging just 10:33 in ice time per night. Although he has played mainly a bottom six role in his limited NHL viewings, Miroshnichenko has played 157:49 of his even-strength total of 517:54 – about 30 percent – of his even-strength minutes with Strome, a top-six fixture throughout his tenure in D.C. Miroshnichenko’s metrics have been decent over that span, given that he’s started just under half (45.89 percent) of his even-strength shifts in the offensive zone.
Miroshnichenko is entering the first year of a two-year, $1.85 million contract, and if he is a productive player on the roster over that term, it’s a significant plus for a Caps team that will have the Ryan Leonard and Justin Sourdif contracts kicking in at the outset of the 2027-28 season. But to be a productive player that can over-deliver relative to the value of his contract, Miroshnichenko will obviously need to carve out a larger role for himself. That won’t be easy on a team as deep as Washington currently rolls, on paper anyway.
With three goals in the first two preseason games, 33-year-old veteran Jonny Brodzinski has also shown well to this point in camp, and he could theoretically merit consideration for that slot alongside Strome and Leonard, too, as could Ethen Frank. But as an NHL veteran, Brodzinski has already hit his two-game max for the exhibition season.
Through the first half of camp, the Caps’ entire “fifth line” of Miroshnichenko, Brodzinski and Frank has stood out, in a good way; all three found the scoresheet in their first exhibition.
Brodzinski’s speed and shot fits in well with his linemates. And like Anthony Beauvillier, Boone Jenner and Justin Sourdif, the former Rangers forward brings a bit of “Swiss Army knife” to the table as far as versatility is concerned. One of his two goals in Monday’s win over the Flyers was a shorthanded marker.
“It’s kind of as advertised, as to how he’s gotten to where he is in his career,” says Carbery of Brodzinski. “He’s very versatile, so that’s number one. He can play a lot of different positions; he can play a lot of different roles. Whether you’ve got him on the fourth line and he knows and understands because he’s been in the League and playing professional hockey for a long time, so he knows, ‘Okay, fourth line, that means I’ve got to be good with the puck, I’ve got to get in on the forecheck, I’ve got to be extremely reliable, I’ve got to win my puck battles.’
“And then, he gets into scenarios where he is in more offensive roles, and then you can push the envelope a little bit and try to attack and make a play. I just think he is a very versatile player – first and foremost – and then he is a pro. He came in early, he’s been in D.C. for a while, he’s been working with the guys, getting prepared for camp, and you could tell right from the start of camp he was ready to go. And it’s not a surprise that he’s had a real strong camp.”
The big splash offseason moves the Caps made to add the likes of Jenner, Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch to their forward group and Vincent Desharnais to their back end has certainly given them more depth as they get ready to enter the regular season late next week, but the preseason and camp showings of players such as Brodzinski, Frank, Miroshnichenko, Josh Dunne, Bogdan Trineyev and Justin Holl has shown the depth may be deeper than originally believed.
Plenty of players are making the Caps’ roster decisions plenty difficult, and in the newly shortened training camp to boot.
“There are some big decisions that are going to come, and we just haven’t had a lot of game action to evaluate,” notes Carbery. “That’s just the nature of the beast. That’s the landscape we’re in now with the new CBA. And so a lot of it is off of last year – how they played, what you think – and then you have to make the best decision possible with the information that you have.”
Notes: Rasmus Sandin, rehabbing from offseason knee surgery, took the ice on his own after Group A’s early morning practice. He worked on some puck touches and some light skating in the few minutes we witnessed … The Caps trimmed nine players from their camp roster, paring down to 44 players with some cuts on Tuesday. Forwards Tyler Kopff, Petr Sikora and Alex Suzdalev were loaned to AHL Hershey, defensemen Jeremie Biakabutuka and Jon McDonald and goaltenders Garin Bjorklund and Ben Kraws were assigned to Hershey. Forward Patrick Thomas will continue to rehab an upper body injury in Hershey, and forward Ludwig Persson was placed on waivers for the purpose of loaning him to Hershey.
