SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes from Caps' Morning Skate 1/14

Halfway Down The Road -Back in June when the NHL released the schedule for the 2018-19 season, it was easy to see right away that January would provide the Caps with a significant challenge. Sure, there is an eight day bye week/All-Star break stretched out like a desert oasis at the end of the month, but the price of that break is a dozen games in 21 days leading up to the breather.

In addition to the ratio of games to nights, the quality of competition is daunting, as is the actual layout of the schedule. The stretch includes games against five of the league's six stingiest teams in terms of goals against, and not much in the way of multi-game road trips or homestands. The run started with a three-game trip - the only stretch of consecutive road games in the bunch - and those three road games were played in a tight stretch of roughly 72 hours.
Monday's game against the St. Louis Blues is the second game of a two-game homestand, the only instance of consecutive home games the Caps will have in January. After Saturday's 2-1 overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Caps are a respectable 3-1-2 in January, and they're halfway through that rugged patch of scheduling.
Washington has earned at least a point in five straight games (3-0-2), and the Caps pulled seven out of eight possible points while playing their last four games over a seven-night span, and traveling for all four.
But it doesn't get any easier. Starting with Monday's game against the Blues, the Caps will head into the break with six games in 10 nights, they'll play two sets of back-to-back games, they'll face four teams that are currently in playoff position, and they'll alternate home and road games right up to the break, so travel will be required for all six of those games.

Do Over - Bridging the turn of the calendar from 2018 to 2019, the Caps lost a 6-3 home ice decision to the Nashville Predators on Dec. 31 and lost 5-2 to the Blues in St. Louis on Jan. 3. Those two successive contests might be the worst two performances the Caps have strung together consecutively at any point this season.
These next two games on the schedule offer the Caps an opportunity for atonement. They host the Blues on Monday in D.C., then head straight out to Dulles to depart for Nashville, where they will face the Predators on Tuesday.
"I think St. Louis was just one of those games - you have maybe a couple of them every year - where it was just a collective off day for most of the team," says Caps center Lars Eller. "We couldn't really execute simple passes and guys were falling around and things just weren't working collectively.
"I think against Nashville, we kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit. One thing was penalties, and there were other things. So I'd like to think that we at least learned from that game. We're confident going into [Monday night] and it's two very good challenges, two strong teams when you look at the lineups. Both present a really good challenge for us."
There are those who will look at the standings and say the Caps should win Monday's game against St. Louis, merely because of the two teams' respective places in their divisional standings. But St. Louis is not a bad team, it's merely an underachieving one, and it has been a fairly banged up team at various points this season, too.
Washington and St. Louis each feature nine players with 2018-19 salary cap hits of $5 million or greater, and the Caps and Blues lead the league in that department. The Caps' group of big ticket players has outperformed the Blues' thus far this season, but St. Louis has won each of its last two and is seeking its first three-game winning streak of the season tonight.
"Most people probably thought of them as a strong playoff team and a possible Cup contender," says Eller, a Blues' first-rounder (13th overall) in the 2007 NHL Draft. "But they have the potential to be a lot better than their record indicates, so we are not taking two points for granted."

A Grand Night - Caps defenseman Brooks Orpik plays in the 1,000th game of his NHL career tonight against the Blues, just over 16 years after he skated in his first tilt in the league, a Dec. 10, 2002 game for the Pittsburgh Penguins against the Maple Leafs in Toronto.
"I remember getting called up," says Orpik. "We were on a road trip with [AHL] Wilkes-Barre. We got back late - I don't know what day of the week it was - but it was the night before, and when we were getting off the bus, they told two of us [Orpik and former Caps draftee Ross Lupaschuk] that we were getting called up.
"So I think I got maybe three or four hours of sleep, and then I had to catch a quick flight from Wilkes-Barre to Pittsburgh in the morning, and then we practiced that morning and we went to Toronto. It happened pretty quickly.
"It was at the Air Canada Centre, and my parents got to come because they were in Buffalo, so it was a quick drive for them. I don't really remember too much about it, but I think we lost. I can't tell you the score. And then we got to go on a west coast trip, to all of the California teams and Phoenix. That was pretty fun, but it seems like a long time ago, though."
They did lose, 4-2 to the Leafs. Orpik skated 15:58 that night in the first of six games he would play for the Pens before being returned to the AHL before Christmas.
Lupaschuk was Washington's second-round pick (34th overall) in the 1999 NHL Draft. Along with fellow 1999 Caps draftees Kris Beech and Michel Sivek, he was the payment for Jaromir Jagr when the Caps engineered the July 11, 2001 deal that brought the superstar Czech winger to D.C.. That Dec. 10, 2002 game against the Leafs - Orpik's NHL debut - was the only game in which all three of Beech, Lupaschuk and Sivek played.
Lupaschuk, also a defenseman, skated 19:27 to Orpik's 15:58 that night, but Lupaschuk played in the last of his three-game NHL career a week later on that same road trip in Phoenix. Sivek's NHL career consisted of 38 games, all with the Pens and all in 2002-03. Beech had the longest career; he played 198 NHL games spread out over seven seasons with five different teams.
Beech played 100 of those games with the Pens, and he skated 73 games with Washington, getting a return engagement in the District after Nashville dealt him here at the 2006 trade deadline as part of the payment for renting Brendan Witt. The Caps also got Nashville's first-round pick in the 2006 NHL Draft in that deal, and they used it to take goaltender Semyon Varlamov.

In the Nets - Caps goalie Braden Holtby departed Saturday's game midway through the second period after sustaining an eye injury, and Pheonix Copley came on in relief at that point. Washington eventually lost 2-1 in overtime, but Copley was instrumental and vital in the Caps earning a point before he was saddled with the hard luck loss in overtime.
Holtby is better and is able to play, but the Caps are going with Copley tonight against his former employer, the Blues. In his last eight appearances, Copley is 6-0-2 with a 2.08 GAA and a .932 save pct. In five appearances on home ice (three starts) this season, Copley is 3-0-2 with a 2.28 GAA and a .924 save pct.
Jake Allen gets the net for St. Louis, despite the fact that Jordan Binnington has come up from the AHL and won his first three NHL starts, pitching a shutout and allowing just two goals in the process. Allen beat the Caps on Jan. 3 in St. Louis, and lifetime he is 2-2-0 with a shutout, a 2.65 GAA and a .910 save pct. against Washington.
All Lined Up - This is how we expect the Caps and the Blues to look when they meet on Monday night at Capital One Arena:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson
13-Vrana, 19-Backstrom, 77-Oshie
65-Burakovsky, 20-Eller, 10-Connolly
18-Stephenson, 72-Boyd, 25-Smith-Pelly
Defensemen
6-Kempny, 74-Carlson
9-Orlov, 2-Niskanen
44-Orpik, 22-Bowey
Goaltenders
1-Copley
70-Holtby
Injuries
29-Djoos (lower body)
Scratches
23-Jaskin
26-Dowd
34-Siegenthaler
ST. LOUIS
Forwards
17-Schwartz, 10-Schenn, 91-Tarasenko
12-Sanford, 90-O'Reilly, 57-Perron
7-Maroon, 70-Sundqvist, 33-Kyrou
71-Nolan, 49-Barbashev, 9-Blais
Defensemen
6-Edmondson, 27-Pietrangelo
19-Bouwmeester, 55-Parayko
29-Dunn, 41-Bortuzzo
Goaltenders
34-Allen
50-Binnington
Injuries
4-Gunnarsson (illness)
18-Thomas (upper body)
20-Steen (shoulder)
21-Bozak (concussion)
Scratches
4-Gunnarsson
15-Fabbri
62-MacEachern