SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes From Caps' Morning Skate

Pale Blue Monday -The Caps face the Vegas Golden Knights tonight at Capital One Arena in the middle match of a three-game homestand. Washington is coming off an uplifting 3-2 overtime win over Ottawa on Saturday night, a game in which it rallied back from an 2-0 third-period deficit to win 3-2 in overtime.

Alex Ovechkin scored a pair of third-period goals to tie it, and Nicklas Backstrom won it for Washington at 1:13 of the extra session. The longtime duo of Ovechkin and Backstrom will be reunited tonight, as the two - along with Conor Sheary - will make up the Caps' top forward trio against Vegas.
Backstrom has eight points (two goals, six assists) in nine games this season, and four of his helpers have come on Ovechkin goals. Ovechkin is a goal shy of hitting the 30-goal mark for the 16th time in his 17 NHL seasons. The Caps captain carries a seven-game point streak (five goals, three assists) into tonight's tilt.
Washington played Saturday's game without three of its top four defensemen, and two of those three are expected to return to the lineup tonight. Dmitry Orlov has served his two-game NHL suspension and John Carlson is off the COVID-19 protocol list and ready to step back in after missing the last four games, the first action he has missed this season.
Carlson hasn't had the luxury of a full practice after being away from the team and the ice for a week, but he looked and felt good at Monday morning's skate.
"You just try to do the best you can," says Carlson. "I felt good this morning, but who knows what tonight will bring? People know what they can and can't do out there. I think we'll find out pretty quickly how I feel and what I need to do to be my best with that."
On the downside, Caps defenseman Nick Jensen was placed on injured reserve and downgraded from day-to-day to week-to-week with an upper body injury he sustained in Thursday's 4-3 loss to the Bruins in Boston.
Justin Schultz (24:59), Martin Fehervary (24:14) and Michal Kempny (22:24) all logged single-game season highs in ice time on Saturday as the Caps' makeshift blueline corps more than held its own against Ottawa.
"You're always ready for that, and it's obviously tough missing those guys," says Schultz. "But I think the other guys that came in [Kempny, Dennis Cholowski and Matt Irwin] to our backline did a great job. I think all six of us played a great game, but guys have been doing it all year, coming in and stepping up. It's no different for us."
Word Forward - Coming off Saturday's win over the Sens, Washington is expected to dress the same dozen forwards for tonight's game against Vegas. Although the Caps won that game, they've changed the complexion of all four forward lines compared to how they looked at the outset of Saturday's game.
All three of Washington's rookie forwards - Brett Leason, Connor McMichael and Aliaksei Protas - were limited to fewer than 10 minutes in Saturday's game, and Caps coach Peter Laviolette shared his thinking for his Saturday night line shuffling in his postgame presser that night.
"I feel like the last 10 games we've been chasing a little bit," begins Laviolette. "The first 30 games, we've got a two-goal lead or a three-goal lead and we're out in front, and you can roll the bench and you can roll the lines and you can try to maximize your lineup.
"As games wear on and it's 2-0 [against you], I think you're trying to get - for me anyway - you're trying to get some of those veteran players out there that have a history of production and producing, still keeping [Nic Dowd's] line intact and trying to put them up against top lines. And so it just shortens [the bench] and sometimes, too, it gets the players more involved. Instead of every fourth shift where you're waiting and you're waiting for your next one, it gets the roll quicker and it gets them back out there. It's plenty of time to recover, and then it's plenty of time to go back out there with good energy.
"If somebody didn't play a lot in the third, it's not about what they didn't do, it's about and getting those players that have a history of production on the ice, and trying to win a hockey game."
Backstrom and Ovechkin have demonstrated chemistry together for a decade and a half, and Sheary is a proven complementary player who is at ease on either wing and on virtually any line. Evgeny Kuznetsov and Tom Wilson established chemistry together way back in their rookie seasons of 2013-14, and they've maintained it since. McMichael joins them to round out the top six; he has played well of late but his ice time was severely limited in Saturday's game; he logged only 5:50.
The Dowd line is back together after Garnet Hathaway's brief run on the right side of the top line, and that leaves Lars Eller centering for rookies Protas and Leason tonight, one of the few line permutations we don't recall seeing earlier in the campaign. Protas and Leason have played together going back to their junior hockey days with Prince Albert in the WHL.
Protas, like Sheary, seems to be able to play on any line. Thirty games into his NHL career, Protas has played all three forward positions and he has played on all four lines this season, a real rarity for rookies in this league.
"Now it's more about communication with the partners," says Protas. "We are playing a system, but sometimes it doesn't really matter where you play. You just need to know the structure of all positions. So now, it's all about communication with my linemates."
Shoot Out The Lights - Vegas pumped 53 shots on the Montreal net on Thursday in its most recent game, and it has put 40 or more pucks on opposition nets five times in its last 10 games. The Golden Knights are seventh in the NHL in shots per game, they're seventh in the League in shot suppression and they're seventh in the circuit in shot attempts at 5-on-5.
"They work really hard, they're hard on pucks, shot volume," says Laviolette of the Golden Knights. "They're dangerous offensively; they put up a lot of goals, score a lot of goals. And so the defense is going to have to be really good, and we're going to have to work to generate."
And, as always, the best defense is to spend as much time as possible at the other end of the ice.
"The best defense is a good offense," says Schultz. "So as much as we can control the puck and make good decisions at the lines, and limit their odd man rushes, I think we should be fine."
In The Nets -Vitek Vanecek gets the net again tonight for Washington, making his fourth straight start and his fifth start in the Caps' last six games. This marks the second time this season he has started four straight games; the first time was from Nov. 1-8 when he went 1-2-1 in a string of four consecutive starts.
Vanecek has fashioned a .919 save pct. in his last four starts, and he is 5-2-1 since the beginning of December. He will make his first career start against Vegas tonight.
Robin Lehner is the expected goaltender for the Golden Knights, who will also play tomorrow night in Carolina. Lifetime against the Capitals, Lehner is 2-3-1 with a shutout, a 2.17 GAA and a .927 save pct.
All Lined Up - Here's how we believe the Capitals and the Golden Knights might look on Monday night in the District:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 19-Backstrom, 73-Sheary
24-McMichael, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson
59-Protas 20-Eller, 49-Leason
62-Hagelin, 26-Dowd, 21-Hathaway
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
9-Orlov, 2-Schultz
6-Kempny, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
41-Vanecek
30-Samsonov
Extras/Taxi Squad
10-Sprong
23-Sgarbossa
31-Shepard
38-Cholowski
52-Irwin
Injured/Out
3-Jensen (upper body, week-to-week)
39-Mantha (upper body, indefinite)
77-Oshie (upper body, day-to-day)
VEGAS
Forwards
81-Marchessault, 71-Karlsson, 19-Smith
28-Carrier, 20-Stepheson, 63-Dadonov
26-Janmark, 10-Roy, 55-Kolesar
21-Howden, 41-Patrick, 22-Amadio
Defensemen
14-Hague, 7-Pietrangelo
3-McNabb, 27-Theodore
17-Hutton, 52-Coghlan
Goaltenders
90-Lehner
1-Ferguson
Extras/Taxi Squad
15-Leschshyshyn
36-Thompson
42-Miromanov
46-Rondbjerg
Injured/Out
2-Whitecloud (undisclosed)
9-Eichel (neck)
23-Martinez (upper body)
24-Brooks (undisclosed)
39-Brossoit (undisclosed)
44-Ahac (undisclosed)
45-Bischoff (undisclosed)
61-Stone (COVID-19 protocol)
67-Pacioretty (wrist)