SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes from Caps' Morning Skate 11/9

Jacket Weather - The Caps continue their five-game homestand on Friday night when the Columbus Blue Jackets make the first of their two trips to the District this season. The Caps and Jackets come into tonight's game with 17 points each, and the winner will vault over the idle New York Islanders and into the top spot in the Metropolitan Division standings.

Two nights after a 2-1 triumph over the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Caps are facing a second consecutive opponent from among the four teams they vanquished en route to the franchise's first Stanley Cup championship last spring.
"It will be a good challenge," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "They are disappointed that we're the ones that ended their season. We've been on the other side of that, and it's always a bit of a rally cry within your own room. For us, we know that that is coming and we've got to be prepared for that. But we've also got to continue to work on our game."
This is the second time this season the Caps have faced a 2018 Stanley Cup playoff opponent in consecutive games. They dropped a 7-6 overtime decision to the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Oct. 4 and defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in their next game, here in D.C. on Oct. 10.
Blueline Shuffle - Washington's blueline corps will look vastly different tonight than projected at season's outset. Brooks Orpik has been moved to long-term injured reserve, retroactive to Oct. 27. He won't be eligible to play until Nov. 21 when Washington hosts Chicago in its annual Thanksgiving Eve game.
The Caps also announced on Friday that John Carlson will miss Friday's game with a lower body injury, and he is day-to-day. With two of their most experienced defenders out of the lineup tonight, Washington recalled defensemen Jonas Siegenthaler and Aaron Ness from AHL Hershey.
"He had a real strong camp for us to start with," says Reirden of Siegenthaler. "He's been a prospect that we've been watching a lot over the last few years and monitoring his development. He's a big, strong guy who can help on the penalty kill as well. He has had a decent start to the year in Hershey, and he deserves this opportunity and I'm looking forward to seeing him get his first NHL game tonight."
Siegenthaler is slated to make his NHL debut tonight
, skating the left side of a blueline pairing with Madison Bowey. The 21-year-old Siegenthaler was Washington's second-round (57th overall) choice in the 2015 NHL draft, and he is the first member of the Caps' '15 draft class to ascend to the NHL.
It will take a coordinated team effort to make up for Carlson's absence. The leading scorer among NHL blueliners last season and the only player in the league to log more than 300 minutes of power play time and 200 minutes of penalty killing duty in 2017-18, Carlson ranks third in the league in scoring among defensemen this season with 18 points, and his average nightly workload of 26 minutes ranks fourth among the league's rearguards.
"First of all, first NHL games, that never gets old," says Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen, whose 815 games in the NHL are more than Washington's other five defensemen have combined to play. "That's going to be an awesome night for Siegs. I'm sure he's excited and nervous, and he should enjoy today and tonight. That's awesome.
"But as a group, whenever people are out, just rally together. Play a better team game, and I think focus on our structure so we are real predictable to each other and we know where each other are, know our outs for our outlet passes. I think it's going to be important for our defense to work in pairs, help each other out on breakouts and sorting on [defensive] zone coverage.
"Our forwards have got to create some offensive-zone so it lessens the burden on our back end with a couple of guys out here. But Siegs is a very capable player. Every [defenseman] that's in there tonight is very capable of playing a really solid game for us and giving us a chance to win."
For most of the last couple of seasons, Niskanen has been partnered with Dmitry Orlov, the Caps' second-most experienced defenseman among the able-bodied. Ironically, the coaching staff broke up that pairing and the Carlson-Michal Kempny duo after a dismal first period on Wednesday night. Niskanen played the final 40 minutes of that game with Kempny, and he'll start tonight's game playing with him as well.
"The limited time that we had together, those second two periods, seemed okay," assesses Niskanen. "It's a little bit different. You get used to one partner for a couple of years there, and it might take a little bit of time for me and Kemps to gel. We'll see if they want to go with that, or how it goes. But communicate and try to read off each other, and it shouldn't be a huge deal - it's not like me and Orlov played a different system than John and Kemps. So we'll be fine. We just need to get used to reading off each other and maybe keep it simple for a few shifts we can get going, and play with your instincts."
Columbus is a hard-forechecking team, so it will be critical for the Caps to get clean exits from their own end and to avoid getting hemmed, particularly in the second period. Reirden and his staff will keep a close eye of the Washington defenders to see how these newly cobbled pairings are working out.
"We'll start with the pairs as we had them this morning," says Reirden, but I think there will be a little bit of a plan that adjusts as the game goes on, depending upon the situation and how guys are doing, how they're playing, and how the other team has set up their lines. I'd say there will be some moving parts."
Everybody Went Low - Until Wednesday night's 2-1 win over Pittsburgh, every Caps game this year had at least five goals scored by the two teams combined, and the Caps had lost every game in which they scored fewer than four goals. Although the Penguins significantly outplayed Washington in that game, the game serves as a reminder that it's good to win the occasional 2-1 or 3-2 decision, something that was missing from the Caps' early season repertoire.
"We gave up too much and I think [goaltender Braden Holtby] bailed us out some, " says Niskanen. "But it's okay to be patient, too. Ideally, you're aggressive and you're moving the puck well and you're on the attack for the majority of the game. But the other teams are good, too. Sometimes you just have to be patient and have a real structured effort for a portion of it - for a few minutes span here or there. You nee to know who you're on the ice against too, and manage the game a little bit.
"The last game wasn't the black and white blueprint of that type of style, because we gave up way too much. They tilted the ice for the majority of the game. But we found a way to win, and Holts was real good."
Last season, the Caps posted a 3-21-3 record in games in which they scored two or fewer goals. Wednesday's win over the Pens lifts them to 1-3-0 in such contests in 2018-19.
"Braden played outstanding of the game, his best game of the year for me for sure," says Reirden. "I think some games earlier in the year, maybe we played a little bit better and we lost. That's the way it goes sometimes. We'll gladly take the two points against a rival like that and move forward."
In The Nets - Two nights after he authored a strong 41-save performance in a 2-1 win over Pittsburgh, Holtby gets the net again for the Capitals. Holtby's victory over Pittsburgh snapped a three-game (0-2-1) personal slide for the Caps goaltender. He gets the net again tonight against Columbus, a team he has fared well against over the years.
Lifetime against the Jackets, Holtby is 14-4-2 with a shutout, a 2.62 GAA and a .914 save pct.
Columbus is playing the front end of a set of back-to-back games here tonight; the Jackets will return to Ohio immediately afterwards to host the New York Rangers on Saturday. That being the case, they're likely to split the goaltending chores between Sergei Bobrovsky and Joonas Korpisalo this weekend, but without a morning skate on Friday, we're not positive which way the Jackets will turn tonight.
More than likely, it will be Bobrovsky. The former Vezina winner has had some ups and downs in the early weeks of the '18-19 season, but he's been solid over his last four appearances, three of which were starts. He is 2-2-0 with a 1.86 GAA and a .944 save pct. in those four games.
Lifetime against Washington in the regular season, Bobrovsky is 7-10-4 in 22 appearances, with a 3.02 GAA and a .900 save pct.
All Lined Up - Here is how we expect the Capitals and the Blue Jackets will look when the two Metropolitan Division rivals tangle for the first of four times this season on Friday night at Capital One Arena:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 23-Jaskin
18-Stephenson, 19-Backstrom, 77-Oshie
13-Vrana, 20-Eller, 10-Connolly
65-Burakovsky, 72-Boyd, 25-Smith-Pelly
Defensemen
6-Kempny, 2-Niskanen
9-Orlov, 29-Djoos
34-Siegenthaler, 22-Bowey
Goaltenders
70-Holtby
1-Copley
Injuries
43-Wilson (league suspension)
44-Orpik (lower body)
74-Carlson (lower body)
Scratches
26-Dowd
55-Ness
COLUMBUS
Forwards
9-Panarin, 18-Dubois, 13-Atkinson
71-Foligno, 38-Jenner, 77-Anderson
45-Sedlak, 10-Wennberg, 91-Duclair
20-Nash, 17-Dubinsky, 37-Hannikainen
Defensemen
8-Werenski, 3-Jones
27-Murray, 65-Nutivaara
14-Kukan, 58-Savard
Goaltenders
72-Bobrovsky
70-Korpisalo
Injuries
None

Scratches
4-Harrington
6-Clendening
28-Bjorkstrand