SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes From Caps Morning Skate

Back Home - After a weeklong excursion to the West Coast to take on the three California teams and pay their first ever visit to Seattle, the Caps are back home to start a two-game homestand. Washington will be playing its traditional Thanksgiving Eve home game tonight against Montreal, and it will host its traditional Black Friday contest on Friday against Florida.

Starting with tonight's tilt against the Habs, Washington will play six of its next eight games on home ice. The Caps are 5-1-3 at home this season, with their lone regulation loss coming on Nov. 6 in a 2-1 defeat to the Flyers.
Everybody's Hurting - The Caps have navigated their way through the season's first six weeks, managing an 11-3-5 mark despite missing several key forwards virtually every night. Washington placed winger T.J. Oshie on injured reserve on Wednesday; Oshie returned to the lineup after a 10-game absence on Saturday night in San Jose, but he suffered another unrelated injury and is again on the sidelines.
Winger Conor Sheary missed his first game of the season on Sunday in Seattle, and he did not participate in Wednesday's morning skate. Only five Washington forwards have played in all 19 of the team's games to date.
Prior to Wednesday's morning skate, the Caps recalled forwards Beck Malenstyn and Mike Sgarbossa from AHL Hershey, and both will be in the lineup for tonight's game against the Habs.
On the good news front, Nicklas Backstrom was on the ice with his teammates on Wednesday, another step forward in the veteran center's rehab process. Backstrom has been rehabbing an ailing hip since before training camp got underway in late September.
"This is another step," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "It's really good to have him out there just to see him on the ice. It's a little bit different when somebody's out for a week and they come back in a [non-contact] blue jersey and they're working their way back in. So he's still got work to do. We're going to work in the best interests of Nick, but certainly the fact that he joined us in a skate is a real positive for everybody."
During the course of last season's truncated 56-game regular season schedule, Washington lost a total of 72 man-games to injury. As they head into tonight's contest against the Canadiens, the Caps have already amassed 52 man-games lost to injury and illness and they expect to have five forwards out of the lineup tonight for the second straight game.
In The Nets -Carrying a shutout streak of 151:27 and fresh from being named the NHL's second star of the week ending Nov. 21, Ilya Samsonov will start for the Caps tonight against the Canadiens. Samsonov stopped all 56 shots he faced in his two starts on Washington's just completed four-game West Coast road trip, becoming the first Caps goalie ever to spin a shutout in Los Angeles and then blanking the Sharks in San Jose three nights later.
Samsonov became the first Caps netminder to fashion shutouts in consecutive regular season road games in more than 33 years, since Clint Malarchuk turned the trick on Feb. 19-20, 1998 at Winnipeg and Minnesota, respectively.
For the second straight season, Samsonov has started out with a 6-0-1 record in his first seven decisions. He owns a 2.11 GAA and a .924 save pct. this season as compared to a 2.54 GAA and a .907 save pct. when he was sitting at 6-0-1 after eight appearances last season.
Lifetime against the Canadiens, Samsonov is 0-1-0 with a 4.07 GAA and an .892 save pct. in one appearance.
For Montreal, we are expecting to see Jake Allen between the pipes tonight. Allen has missed the Canadiens' last four games with a concussion and will be in the crease for the first time since Nov. 13 at Detroit.
With Carey Price on the sidelines since the season's outset, Allen has seen the lion's share of time in the Montreal crease this season. He has a 4-8-1 record with two shutouts, a 2.78 GAA and a .905 save pct. on the season, and is 3-2-0 with a shutout, a 2.28 GAA and a .922 save pct. lifetime against Washington in five appearances.
All Lined Up -Here's how we expect the Capitals and the Canadiens to look on Wednesday night in Washington:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 59-Protas
10-Sprong, 24-McMichael, 43-Wilson
62-Hagelin, 26-Dowd, 21-Hathaway
47-Malenstyn, 23-Sgarbossa, 49-Leason
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
9-Orlov, 3-Jensen
57-van Riemsdyk, 2-Schultz
Goaltenders
30-Samsonov
41-Vanecek
Extras
38-Cholowski
52-Irwin
Injured
19-Backstrom (hip, week-to-week)

20-Eller (COVID-19 protocol)
39-Mantha (upper body, indefinite)
73-Sheary (upper body)
77-Oshie (lower body)
MONTREAL
Forwards
73-Toffoli, 14-Suzuki, 22-Caufield
92-Drouin, 28-Dvorak, 17-Anderson
62-Lehkionen, 71-Evans, 11-Gallagher
55-Pezzetta, 25-Poehling, 40-Armia
Defensemen
8-Chiarot, 26-Petry
59-Norlinder, 58-Savard
27-Romanov, 20-Wideman
Goaltenders
34-Allen
35-Montembeault
Extras
15-Niku
77-Kulak
Injured
6-Weber (foot)
13-Paquette
31-Price
41-Byron (hip)
44-Edmundson
68-Hoffman (upper body)
85-Perreault (eye)