POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Bruins 3, Caps 2 (SO)

Keep On Growing - The Caps opened their six-game preseason slate on Sunday night at Capital One Arena with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Boston Bruins. It goes without saying that results matter little - if at all - at this nascent stage of the season; the focus is more on seeing how the organization's prospects are coming along and where they are with their respective stages of development, and on getting the veterans the game action and reps they'll need to shake off rust and restore their timing.

Toss in the fact that none of the NHL's member clubs played any preseason games last year and some development leagues were shut down completely because of the pandemic, and you've got some unique situations around the league as players in their prime development years aren't getting nearly as much game experience - at any level - as they would under more normal circumstances.
Here in Washington, the Caps were finally able to get their first game-action look at center Hendrix Lapierre, the team's first-round pick (22nd overall) in the 2020 NHL Draft. Lapierre was invited to the Caps' abbreviated training camp prior to the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, but that camp consisted only of practices, drills and intra-squad scrimmages.
The Caps were also able to see several other young players in action against an NHL opponent, albeit one whose roster was also laden with young players, as is typical at this point of the preseason. Given that the game was not as conducive to the typical Postgame Notebook format, we will use this space today to share Caps coach Peter Laviolette's thoughts on the performances of some of his young players, as well as the thoughts of some of those players themselves.
The 19-year-old Lapierre acquitted himself well in his first preseason game on Sunday, skating 15:03 (including 2:17 of power play time) and picking up a pair of secondary assists. Lapierre pushed the pace with his speed and showed well in his first exhibition at this level.

"It was awesome, obviously," says Lapierre. "You don't really know what to expect and I think everything was really, really cool. For my play, I thought on the offensive side it was pretty good. On the defensive side, everything comes quickly and obviously the guys are bigger - forecheck, backcheck, breakouts and stuff like that. I think it took a little bit of time to adjust, and I've still got some adjustments to do, but overall it was good and obviously a tremendous experience."
"I thought he was good," says Laviolette of Lapierre. "I thought he attacked the game at times with his speed. Again, same thing as with [Connor] McMichael; there are definitely things that we will go back and show him - [defensive] zone coverage clips, the face-off plays, whatever. But I thought he was noticeable offensively. He did change his gears quite a bit and got going with the puck. He had a couple of nice plays to help out on the scoring sheet, and I thought he played really well tonight."
McMichael was Washington's first-round pick (25th overall) in the 2019 NHL Draft. After a positively dominant season with London of the OHL in 2019-20, McMichael was able to play professionally a year early last season, and he made the jump with aplomb, leading the AHL Hershey Bears in goals (14) and scoring (27 points) while pacing the entire circuit with eight game-winning goals. He also got his feet wet in the NHL, skating in an early season game against Buffalo before the Bears' season even got underway.
McMichael saw preseason action with the Caps two years ago and showed well, and he comes into this camp as a 20-year-old who spent the summer working with former NHL stalwart and noted fitness/nutrition guru Gary Roberts. McMichael skated 15:55 on Sunday, including 2:17 worth of power play time. He won eight of his 15 face-offs, finishing above water in that regard.
"A big thing that I've worked on is face-offs," says McMichael. "I thought I had a pretty good night on the face-off dot. It's just the little things that you've got to do to make the next step. Like Hendrix, said, it's the best players in the world and it's going to be the little things that separate you from the next guy. I took some pride in face-offs and working on that, and I think that was a big part of my game.
"One thing I want to work on is maybe scoring some goals. I thought our line [with had some good chances and we just couldn't find the back of the net."
Both McMichael and Lapierre could get a longer look than usual this fall because of the ongoing absence of center Nicklas Backstrom from camp activities. Backstrom is rehabbing an ailing hip and is currently listed as week-to-week.

"I thought that he did some good things," says Laviolette of McMichael. "There were some things that he did well offensively, and there are some things that we'll go back and we'll work with him. He is a young player and for jumping in, again, it's the first exhibition game and I thought he did a good job. He had a nice change of gears there in the overtime to push the pace and try to create.
"When it comes to young players, you can always go back and look at the game and there are always little things - teaching things - that maybe you gain when you're experienced. The good thing about playing the exhibition games is that once it's over you can go back and teach these guys and show them some things and hopefully get better for the next game. But I thought he did some good things."
Defenseman Martin Fehervary was the Caps' second-round choice (46th overall) in the 2018 NHL Draft, and he had the distinction of cracking Washington's opening night roster as a teenager in 2019-20, and getting into half a dozen NHL games that season before the pandemic hit. With the offseason loss of lefty defensemen Zdeno Chara and Brenden Dillon, there are openings on the portside of the Caps' defensive depth chart, and the soon-to-be 22-year-old Fehervary is in prime position to land one of those berths.
After a first-shift turnover in front of his own net nearly turned disastrous, Fehervary settled in and was strong for the remainder of the game. He logged a team-high 24:49 in the game (including a team high total of 3:34 of shorthanded ice time), dished out an assist on Garrett Pilon's game-tying goal, had two shots on net and five attempts, laid three hits and blocked a couple of shots.
"It was real nice after a while," says Fehervary. "[I was] a little bit nervous before the game, but once the game was going, I felt way better and I really enjoyed."

"I thought he got better as the game went on," assesses Laviolette of Fehervary's Sunday night performance. "There were a couple of handles early in the game - puck handles early - but that could have been jitters or ice or anything. And from that, I thought he responded well.
"What really makes Marty noticeable sometimes is he is really explosive when he skates. He can be almost flat-footed and have to turn and pivot and go after somebody, and yet he covers that ice really quick because he can explode with his strides. His skating really helped him out, and you could see that tonight."
The trio of Fehervary, Lapierre and McMichael is arguably the Caps' top trio of prospects right now. All were chosen within the first two rounds of their respective drafts, and all are on track to take on significant roles here in the District once they're deemed ready for the responsibility. But they weren't the only prospects who showed well in Sunday's opener.
Several of the Caps older - and less recent - draft choices also forged impressive performances against the Bruins, with Pilon notching the game-tying goal early in the third period and the fourth line of Beck Malenstyn, Riley Sutter and Brett Leason putting together a consistently solid outing shift in and shift out.
Pilon was a third-rounder (87th overall) in 2016 and Malenstyn was a fifth-round choice (145th overall) in the same NHL Draft. The Caps chose Sutter in the third round (93rd overall) in 2018, and Leason was a second-rounder (56th overall) in 2019. All four now have at least two pro seasons under their belt, and all four played their first preseason game under Laviolette on Sunday.
"I thought he was real noticeable with his physicality," says Laviolette of Malenstyn, who led all players on both sides with seven hits in just under a dozen minutes. "He got in and he popped some bodies on the forecheck. He got it behind them, was able to get in and cycle the puck, turn over pucks and create havoc in the offensive zone, so I thought he did a good job.
"Those other guys, they were at camp last year but we didn't play the exhibition games. And playing the exhibition games gives you a better sense of who they are and what type of a game they [have].
"I thought that [Sutter] line was good; they are big bodies. You can tell that those guys have been around for a couple more years now, you can see that in the game. They're just a little bit bigger, they're a little stronger and they've been through some experiences. You can see those guys have matured, even from last camp when I didn't get to see them play games. But you can see them take that step, and they're doing their best to try to crack it up here."
Pilon and Malenstyn are both 23 now, and both have experienced training camps under three different coaching regimes - those of Barry Trotz, Todd Reirden and now Laviolette - in the half decade since they were drafted. Pilon made his NHL debut this past spring, getting into a late season game with the Caps, and Malenstyn got into three games with Washington in November of 2019.
Both are seeking to make their mark here in camp and the exhibition games, and Malenstyn is aiming to rebound from a lost season in 2020-21 when a torn Achilles' tendon and the resulting surgery kept him out of action.
"It was a long time coming," says Malenstyn of his lengthy rehab. "It definitely tested me mentally and physically, being out for that long. You know, sitting at home and watching games on your computer or on the TV just isn't quite the same, not being around the guys.
"It was a long stretch of rehab, but I was able to get a full summer of work had a great team out in Vancouver that helped me through it. I'm just really excited. I'm coming in this year with the mindset of making the team. That injury is behind me now. I feel confident with having that full summer of training, being fully cleared and I'm coming here to work and I really just enjoy being around these guys again and playing. It's been great."
Malentsyn's game is based on skating, speed, physicality and defensive acumen. He projects as a checking line winger who can kill penalties.
"Having that first impression is huge, and those stick around for a long time," says Malenstyn of playing for the first time in front of a new coaching staff. "We've been through a few coaching changes here, but the core values in this group seem to stay the same. It's easy to come in here and be familiar with the guys.
"It's just focusing on the details and trying to be yourself by coming in here and trying to be a guy who is pleasant to be around and jokes around, stays pretty loose, but once the puck drops likes to be hard on it. I'm just coming in here trying to play my game and showing those new coaches what I'm about."
On a per-game basis, Pilon's production has increased incrementally in each of his three pro seasons, and he scored his goal on Sunday with a well-placed backhander from the slot that seemed to catch Boston netminder Troy Grosenick off guard.
"The older we've gotten - and as a third-year pro, it happens pretty fast - I think we realize how short the window can be to make it," admits Pilon. "For us at camp now, it's a do or kind of die mentality. For us, we've just got to go out there and give it everything we've got, because we know that the window can be shut at any time, and I think it's at the point where it's the time and the age to make that jump."
Pilon posted double-digit goal totals and notched roughly half a point per game in his first two pro seasons at Hershey before totaling four goals and 16 points in just 14 games at Hershey in the shortened '20-21 campaign, during which he spent time on Washington's taxi squad, limiting his AHL game total. He made his NHL debut on May 8 against Philadelphia in the Caps' penultimate game of the regular season.
"It's a big jump from junior to pro," says Pilon, a center who skated the right side of the Caps' top line with Lars Eller and Conor Sheary on Sunday. "Once you kind of get settled in at that AHL level, then you start to learn the game a little bit more, and that's been huge. We've had Spencer Carbery and Patrick Wellar and Scott Allen there in Hershey, and they've been great with us, teaching us how to play more of a pro game, and that's been helpful when we get called up here and we get a chance."