SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes from Caps' Morning Skate 12/22

Hockey Night In Kanata -The Caps are making the first of two straight Saturday night visits to suburban Ottawa to take on the Senators. They'll finish off a set of back-to-back games there tonight against the Sens, and they'll return here again next Saturday night to play their final road game of calendar 2018.

Both teams are playing for the second time in as many nights. The Caps edged Buffalo 2-1 in Washington last night while the Sens were absorbing a 5-2 setback at the hands of the Devils in New Jersey.

"Back-to-backs are always a difficult challenge," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "It's something we've been working on this year. We knew going into it - especially after extended time in the playoffs and winning the Stanley Cup - we knew we were going to go through some difficult times in terms of energy levels and intensity, so back-to-backs were a struggle for us early in the year. Our last couple of back-to-backs have been strong, and we're hoping we can follow it up tonight."
Ottawa leads the league in goals against; the Sens surrender an average of 3.91 goals per game. But Ottawa has a potent attack, and it has scored four or more goals in 16 of 36 games this season. The Sens are also strong on home ice, forging an 11-5-1 record at Canadian Tire Centre thus far. They won only 16 games on home ice last season.
"They're a team that obviously has some dangerous talent up front," says Reirden. "Their [defensemen] are very active in the rush, and they add from the blueline. They're a very dangerous team with the puck off the rush. In zone, there is a lot of movement from their defense, so it's tough in the [defensive] zone. We've got to make sure that we are really compact and taking care of the house - as we would say - and kind of eliminating some of their movement in zone."
Even It Up - The Caps' special teams haven't exactly been special of late, but that hasn't prevented Washington from winning 13 of its last 16 games. In Friday night's win over the Sabres, the Caps played Buffalo even at five-on-five, but won the special teams battle and the game on Chandler Stephenson's shorthanded goal.

Washington has a plus-23 goal differential at five-on-five over its last 16 games, the best in the league over that span. Simply put, excelling at even strength has been a foundational element in Washington's current hot spell.
"We'd love if our special teams were going better, and we believe it will get better," says Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen. "But we've worked hard on our five-on-five game over the last couple of seasons, and to get that kind of production is pretty good. We're getting better and better at how we want to play and how we want to attack with options and numbers. And I think our defensive structure, when we do it hard and do it well, we're really hard to play against.
"We don't give up a lot of quality when we're on top of our game, and when we really need to buckle down we can do it exceptionally well. Now, over the course of the season we have some lapses where we give up some stuff, but when we really need it we can buckle down and just bleed out the clock and preserve a win if we have to."
Friday night's win over the Sabres was an example of that. After Tom Wilson scored to give the Caps the lead with seven minutes remaining, the Caps still had to execute a late penalty kill to seal the victory. They managed to do so by bending without breaking.
"Our five-on-five game has come a long way I think over the last year and a half or two years," says Niskanen. "Really, it gives you a good chance every night. If you're depending on your power play to win you games, it's a coin flip. If you play a disciplined team or run into a good penalty kill or a bad bounce here or there, it's going to be tough to compete. You can get by for a little while, but you need your five-on-fove play to be really strong."

Debut On Defense - Caps defenseman Tyler Lewington will make his NHL debut tonight against the Senators in Ottawa. The 24-year-old Edmonton native was Washington's seventh-round choice (204th overall) in the 2013 NHL draft and his debut comes after he has skated in 201 regular season games at the AHL level.
"That's exciting for any young player," says Reirden, "and in particular his path in terms of getting is one where he has scratched and clawed and earned everything he has gotten for this chance. I'm looking forward to seeing him play his first National Hockey League game tonight. It's always fun to be a part of."
In The Nets -Pheonix Copley gets the net for Washington on Saturday night in Ottawa as the Caps play their final game before the NHL's holiday break. Copley will be seeing his first action in exactly a week; he and the Caps prevailed 4-3 over Buffalo in a shootout last Saturday night in Washington, giving Copley his seventh victory of the season and his second on home ice.
In his first full NHL season, Copley has been excellent in support of Braden Holtby. Copley has given the Caps at least a chance to win in every game he has started. On the season, he is 7-2-1 with a 2.93 GAA and a .902 save pct. Over his last nine starts, Copley is 7-1-0 with a 2.70 GAA and a .908 save pct.
Craig Anderson started for the Sens on Friday night in Newark, and he was pulled after the second period, possibly because of an injury he may have suffered when New Jersey's Miles Wood ran into him. With veteran workhorse Anderson likely to be unavailable - the Sens recalled rookie goalie Marcus Hogberg from AHL Belleville on Saturday - we could see veteran journeyman Mike McKenna in net for Ottawa on Saturday night. We might also see Anderson or even Hogberg.
The 35-year-old McKenna has been backing up the 37-year-old Anderson recently; Mike Condon started the season in that role but was waived and assigned to Belleville at the end of October. McKenna's pro career began in 2005-06 with the ECHL Las Vegas Wranglers. He has spent parts of six seasons toiling in the NHL for six different teams, accumulating 32 games and 24 starts over the years.
McKenna owns a lifetime mark of 7-14-3 with a 3.50 GAA and an .893 save pct. He is 1-2-1 in eight appearances this season. Lifetime against the Capitals, McKenna is 0-3-0 with a 5.20 GAA and an .850 save pct. He holds a permanent place in Caps lore; McKenna was in net for Ovechkin's "hot stick" goal, the Caps' captain's 50th goal of the 2008-09 season in March of 2009 when McKenna was with Tampa Bay.

All Lined Up - This is how we expect the Caps and the Senators to look when they meet for the first time this season on Saturday night in suburban Ottawa:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 19-Backstrom, 77-Oshie
13-Vrana, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson
65-Burakovsky, 20-Eller, 10-Connolly
18-Stephenson, 26-Dowd, 72-Boyd
Defensemen
6-Kempny, 74-Carlson
9-Orlov, 2-Niskanen
34-Siegenthaler, 78-Lewington
Goaltenders
1-Copley
70-Holtby
Injuries
29-Djoos (lower body)
44-Orpik (lower body)
Scratches
22-Bowey
23-Jaskin
25-Smith-Pelly
OTTAWA
Forwards
71-Tierney, 95-Duchene 89-Boedker
7-Tkachuk, 36-White, 61-Stone
18-Dzingel, 15-Smith, 9-Ryan
56-Paajarvi, 13-Paul, 10-Pyatt
Defensemen
72-Chabot, 2-DiMelo
58-Lajoie, 5-Ceci
74-Borwiecki, 83-Jaros
Goaltenders
33-McKenna
35-Hogberg
Injuries
12-Gaborik (back)
16-MacArthur (undisclosed)
41-Anderson (undisclosed)
44-Pageau (torn Achilles)
Scratches
42-Falk
67-Harpur