SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes From Caps' Morning Skate

Motor City - It's been nearly two years since the Caps visited Detroit, but they'll do so tonight on the front end of a two-game trip to the Midwest in which they'll play those two games in as many nights. Washington visits Columbus on Friday.

The last time the Caps were in Detroit was on Nov. 30, 2019 when they played the first game of a four-game road trip - and the back half of a set of back-to-backs - against the Red Wings here in Motown. The Caps won 5-2 that evening, and Caps captain Alex Ovechkin recorded a hat trick, scoring the last two goals into an empty net to reach the 20-goal mark on the season.
The Caps then continued on to California where they swept three games to return home with a perfect 4-0-0 trip.
Breaking Us In Two - For the entirety of last season, the presence of the Carl Hagelin-Nic Dowd-Garnet Hathaway line was a constant for the Caps. That trio skated together in all 56 of Washington's regular season games and all five postseason contests.
This season, injuries to Dowd broke that streak, starting with the Oct. 25 game against the Senators in Ottawa. But with Dowd in and out of the lineup for the last two weeks, Hagelin and Hathaway were kept together on the wings of that line. That all changes tonight in Detroit when the Caps will again play without Dowd, and this time with Hagelin and Hathaway on separate lines.
Tonight's game marks the first time in a span of 96 regular season games that no two of those three players will skate on the same line. The last time it occurred was a Dec. 31, 2019 game against the Islanders in D.C., a game that Dowd missed for the birth of his son. The Hagelin-Dowd-Hathaway line didn't get put together until the beginning of last season, but Dowd and Hathaway played together continuously for the final 28 games of the 2019-20 season.
"I've definitely never been a part of it and I don't think I've ever been on a team where that's happened," says Hagelin. "Me and Hath talked a little bit about it today; it's been maybe 65 or 70 games together. You get comfortable in a certain spot, and it's definitely something to me to play with the same guys for that long. We had a good run."
"I was kind of convinced it would never get split up, you know?" says Hathaway. "Maybe it's being optimistic, maybe it's being naive. But that's the NHL for you. That's hockey. I think the fact that we were together so long consecutively is great. I think we played a lot of great hockey and we could get put back together tomorrow. It's one of those things."
It wasn't ineffectiveness that broke up the trio, nor was it ineffectiveness that split up the two wingers in the wake of Dowd's injury. But with Dowd out of the lineup along with key top-six forwards Nicklas Backstrom, Anthony Mantha and T.J. Oshie, Washington's lineup is now dotted with four forwards who have less than a dozen games worth of experience in the NHL.
During the preseason, Caps coach Peter Laviolette was careful to place young players alongside veterans who could help guide them and show them the way, and he's merely continuing that pattern.
"I want to make sure that we've got a veteran presence and we're covered on all of our lines," says Laviolette. "While the kids are playing well, I think it's always good to have veteran players there to help them and to talk to them and to communicate with them. And so it is what it is.
"Hagelin and Hathaway are split up, they're both in the lineup and they're not going to play together. But they're both veteran players who can bring speed, experience and tenacity on the puck to those lines. We can always adjust and drop down to three lines if we need to, but we've got a back-to-back game, and we want to make sure we get mileage out of our team as well."
In The Nets - More than eight years after he was the first goalie chosen (2nd round, 36th overall) in the 2013 NHL Draft by the Montreal Canadiens, 26-year-old Zach Fucale will make his first career appearance in the NHL on Thursday night in Detroit. Since turning pro in 2015-16, Fucale has been with four different NHL organizations, and he has toiled in five different AHL cities and four different ECHL towns.
Washington currently has three goaltenders on its roster after recalling Fucale from AHL Hershey on Wednesday.
Vitek Vanecek played Monday's game against Buffalo but got tangled with Buffalo's Jeff Skinner late in the game, and the Sabres winger landed on Vanecek's shoulder. All three goalies were on the ice for Thursday's morning skate in Motown.
"With Vitek, we're just making sure he has the right maintenance, more than anything that - precautionary and maintenance for him today," says Laviolette. "Fucale has done an excellent job for over a year now, for all of last year and into this year. It's an opportunity to see him play, and we've got a lot of games coming up here. We have a plan in place for our goaltenders, and we'll see where that goes. But Fucale starts tonight, [Ilya Samsonov] backs up, and Vitek has got maintenance going on today."
Fucale practiced with the team on Wednesday before the journey to Detroit. After that practice, he spent some time fielding questions from the media.
"It's been quite the journey for me," says Fucale. "I've been to a lot of different destinations, leagues, games, Europe and back, and a lot of stuff has happened. I feel like the last few years I've been trending in the right direction. I've got a good thing going, and I'm just sticking to my game, and I feel like things are working well right now."
The deck was somewhat stacked against Fucale in Montreal, where Carey Price was established as the clear No. 1 netminder. After a tremendously successful junior career in which he backstopped four long playoff runs, played in two World Junior Championships (U20) and helped lead Halifax to a Memorial Cup, Fucale hasn't been able to take that next step up - until tonight. He has played in over 200 games in the minors - 116 in the ECHL and 85 in the AHL - since turning pro.
Fucale has also backstopped Team Canada to a pair of Spengler Cup titles since turning pro, and he has been in the same organizations as Price, Marc-Andre Fleury and - very briefly with Washington - Henrik Lundqvist, three of the best of this century, all of whom are virtually certain Hockey Hall of Famers.
Since joining the Washington organization after an agreement to play with a KHL team in 2020-21 fell through at the last minute, Fucale has posted a 12-2-2 record with AHL Hershey, with a shutout, a 1.78 GAA and a .932 save pct. That's easily the best stretch of his 85-game AHL résumé, nearly half (42 games) of which came with St. John's in 2015-16, his first pro season.
"There is something that I did," says Fucale, when queried as to his recent strong stretch. "I just eliminated a lot of things I was thinking about during the games. I didn't do something new; it's the things that I took out of my game I feel that have made the biggest difference. I simplified it a lot and it's a lot of repetition of little, little things that make a difference for me. I'm just focused on the things that really bring me results and just repeat those and that's it."
Fucale's long journey takes its next turn tonight in Detroit.
"He's still a young kid," says Laviolette of Fucale. "He has worked at his game and put himself in position to earn a start. Down in the American Hockey League, his numbers were excellent last year. They're excellent again this year.
"We're in a situation where we get an opportunity in a busy schedule to take a look at him and make sure that Vitek's in a good spot, and we're going to take the opportunity.
For the Red Wings, we're expecting to see Alex Nedeljkovic in net tonight. Nedelkovic's own pro journey has been similar to that of Fucale. Drafted by Carolina one year and one slot (37th overall in 2014) later than Fucale, Nedeljkovic was the third goaltender chosen in his draft year, and he went two slots before the Caps chose Vanecek at No. 39 overall.
Nedeljkovic saw action in one game in relief with the Canes in '16-17, and he got one start two seasons later, and four games in the abbreviated 2019-20 season. He entered last season with just those six games of NHL experience, and he cleared waivers back in January of this year.
Although he spent last season shuttling between the taxi squad and the active roster seemingly every couple of days, he ended up getting into a career high 23 games because of injuries to Petr Mrazek and James Reimer. By season's end, Nedeljkovic had played more minutes than any Carolina goaltender in 2020-21.
In July, the Canes dealt him to Detroit for veteran goaltender Jonathan Bernier and a third-rounder in 2021.
Thus far this season, Nedeljkovic is 3-2-2 with a 2.89 GAA and a .914 save pct. He will be making his first career appearance against Washington tonight.
All Lined Up -Here's how we expect the Capitals and the Red Wings to look on Thursday night in Detroit:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson
73-Sheary, 24-McMichael, 10-Sprong
45-Jonsson-Fjallby, 20-Eller, 21-Hathaway
62-Hagelin, 59-Protas, 49-Leason
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
9-Orlov, 3-Jensen
57-van Riemsdyk, 2-Schultz
Goaltenders
60-Fucale
30-Samsonov
Extras
38-Cholowski
41-Vanecek
52-Irwin
Injured
19-Backstrom (hip, week-to-week)
26-Dowd (lower body)
39-Mantha (upper body, indefinite)
77-Oshie (lower body, week-to-week)
DETROIT
Forwards
59-Bertuzzi, 71-Larkin, 23-Raymond
14-Fabbri, 24-Suter, 11-Zadina
92-Namestnikov, 22-Stephens, 89-Gagner
73-Erne, 27-Rasmussen, 48-Smith
Defensemen
65-Dekeyser, 53-Seider
2-Leddy, 17-Hronek
18-Staal, 28-Lindstrom
Goaltenders
39-Nedeljkovic
29-Greiss
Extras
37-Rowney
70-Stecher
82-Oesterle
Injured
15-Vrana (shoulder)