SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes From Caps' Morning Skate

All In A Daze Work - It's been 10 days since the Caps last took the ice to play a scheduled game, but they'll be back on frozen water tonight when they host the Nashville Predators at Capital One Arena. Following three postponements and a longer-than-usual holiday break, the Caps are as ready as they're going to be to take on the Preds tonight.

Even with centers Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov coming off of COVID-19 protocol, Washington still has seven players in protocol as of noon on Wednesday, and the Caps will be running with a makeshift lineup once again tonight. Only six Capitals have played in each of the team's first 31 games this season, and that number will dip to four tonight as both Martin Fehervary and Nick Jensen will miss tonight's game for the first time this season.
Following six days away from the ice altogether, the Caps will face the Preds after a pair of practices earlier in the week and Wednesday's optional morning skate. Ten-day gaps in the schedule are obviously a rarity in the NHL, but the Caps endured a slightly shorter gap early last season, going a week between games and having three games postponed in early February.
Both teams will be in the same boat; the Preds haven't played since Dec. 17 while Washington has been idle since Dec. 19. The NHL began building bye weeks into its schedules in recent pre-pandemic seasons, but even those breaks were roughly half the length of this layoff.
"They're dealing with the same thing, but it extends more than five days off or whatever you might get [from a bye week]," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "There's so much time gone from the [holiday] break, from COVID, from maybe injuries prior to that.
"You take a look at a guy like Nic Dowd. He was injured, he came back, went into COVID protocol, came back, had a break, and now back. And that's just one example of a person."
There are other examples, too. Backstrom missed the first 28 games of the season, played just one game, then landed on the COVID protocol list. He is expected to play just his second game of the season tonight. Garnet Hathaway played all 56 games last season and skated in each of the Caps' first 25 games this season before a stint in protocol cost him five games. He returned to the lineup for the first time in that Dec. 19 game against Los Angeles, and then was parked for the last 10 days with the rest of his teammates.
"Like I said, Nashville's dealing with the same thing," says Laviolette. "Most teams around the League are dealing with the same thing, and we've just got to try to get guys back up to speed."
On the plus side of the news ledger, T.J. Oshie was among several skaters who took part in Wednesday's optional morning skate. Oshie was placed into COVID-19 protocol on Dec. 18, and he was the only one of the seven Washington players who started the day on the protocol list who did take the ice this morning. That's potentially significant because Hathaway did the same thing back on Dec. 19 when he participated in the morning skate before being removed from protocol that afternoon and suiting up against the Kings that night.
"He's been released and he's back and available to be inside the locker room and out here with the guys," says Laviolette of Oshie. "That's a positive sign."
Regardless of who is in or out for the Caps tonight, they're still very much working their way back to where they were 10 days ago, when the loss to the Kings left them at 7-3-2 in their previous dozen games.
"I don't think we are where we want to be," says Laviolette. "I think it's impossible for us to be there, or for Nashville to be there or for any other team in the League, and it's through no fault of anybody's. It's just the world we're living in.
"We tried to use the last couple of days as a training camp where we're working on systems and we're trying to push the pace and we're doing some sprints inside of practice. We've got a couple of games [coming up] here, but with the [postponed] game on [Jan. 4], it provides another block where we're going to get more guys out of protocol, we're going to take those days and we're going to use them the exact same way - try to push the pace, try to push the compete level and the battle level and just get guys ready. And then eventually, once we start playing games on a regular basis and maybe we're not dealing with so many people missing from the lineup and we get some normalcy to it, maybe we can get back up to speed at that point."
Filling A Hole -While the Caps' forward corps is beginning to return to its normal shape, the team's blueline brigade will look quite different than it has on most nights this season. For the first time in 2021-22, the Caps will have fewer than five of their six regular defensemen on the ice tonight. Mainstays Fehervary, Jensen and Justin Schultz won't play tonight.
Defensemen Michal Kempny and Alex Alexeyev are expected to dress for the first time this season for the Capitals, and Alexeyev will be making his NHL debut if he is in the lineup tonight. And ex-Preds defenseman Matt Irwin is expected to suit up and see duty as Alexeyev's partner against his former team. Irwin has played in five games this season, but those five have all been this month; he has played in five of Washington's last seven games.
For most of the season to this point, the Caps have navigated their way through with a patchwork lineup up front. Tonight's game marks the first time they'll be plugging multiple holes on the blueline.
Washington expects to have blueline stalwarts John Carlson and Dmitry Orlov, and it will also have Trevor van Riemsdyk, who played in two of the Caps' last three games after doing his own stint in protocol earlier this month. Laviolette will likely lean on that trio, but Kempny, Alexeyev and Irwin will all need to shoulder some of the workload as well.
"They're all good defensemen, they're all capable," says Laviolette. "When you have that many people off your back end out of the lineup, you've got to play them. These guys have been playing well.
"Matty we know from being here and in years past being with [assistant coach] Kevin McCarthy and myself. [Kempny and Alexeyev] were called up from Hershey because they were playing well and were doing good things. We've got to rely on that and trust on that. We've got to get a lot of minutes out of these guys."
In The Nets - Ilya Samsonov starts for Washington tonight against Nashville. Along with Vitek Vanecek and Zach Fucale, Samsonov is one of three netminders the Caps have deployed to this point of the season. But with both Vanecek and Fucale in protocol, Pheonix Copley will suit up for the first time this season as Samsonov's backup tonight.
Samsonov has dropped each of his last two starts (0-1-1), with the most recent of those being a 5-4 overtime loss to the Hawks in Chicago two weeks ago tonight. Since authoring back-to-back shutouts on the road in mid-November, Samsonov has permitted three or more goals in six of his last eight starts.
Samsonov will be making his first career start against Nashville.
Juuse Saros gets the net for Nashville. He is 15-8-1 on the season with a couple of shutouts, a 2.22 GAA and a .924 save pct. He carries a five-game winning streak into tonight's game and hasn't lost since Dec. 2.
In four career appearances against Washington, Saros is a perfect 4-0-0 with a 2.75 GAA and a .908 save pct.
All Lined Up - The Caps' morning skate was optional on Wednesday, several players came off of protocol and there are a number of variables and moving parts to both lineups for virtually every NHL game these days. With that in mind, here's how the Caps and Preds could look at puck drop tonight:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson
73-Sheary, 19-Backstrom, 59-Protas
24-McMichael, 20-Eller, 77-Oshie
62-Hagelin, 26-Dowd, 21-Hathaway
Defensemen
9-Orlov, 74-Carlson
6-Kempny, 57-van Riemsdyk
27-Alexeyev, 38-Irwin
Goaltenders
30-Samsonov
1-Copley
Extras
49-Leason
Injured/Out
2-Schultz (COVID-19 protocol)
3-Jensen (COVID-19 protocol)
10-Sprong (COVID-19 protocol)
38-Cholowski (COVID-19 protocol)
39-Mantha (upper body, indefinite)
41-Vanecek (COVID-19 protocol)
42-Fehervary (COVID-19 protocol)
Taxi squad
22-L. Johansen
23-Sgarbossa
NASHVILLE
Forwards
9-Forsberg, 64-Granlund, 95-Duchene
28-Tolvanen, 92-R. Johansen, 11-Kunin
13-Trenin, 21-Cousins, 26-Tomasino
26-Olivier, 47-McCarron, 84-Jeannot
Defensemen
90-Borowiecki, 57-Fabbro
14-Ekholm, 45-Carrier
55-Myers, 5-Benning
Goaltenders
74-Saros
33-Rittich
Extras
17-Harpur
24-Luff
Injured
10-Sissons (COVID-19 protocol)
59-Josi (COVID-19 protocol)
82-Novak (COVID-19 protocol)