Chocolate Drops – After a three-day gap between games, the Caps return to preseason action tonight in Hershey where they’ll host the Philadelphia Flyers in the second of six preseason tune-up tilts for Washington.
This past Sunday in Boston, the Caps got off on the good foot, scoring four first-period goals to coast to a 5-2 victory over the Bruins in their preseason opener at TD Garden. The duo of Sonny Milano (two goals, two assists) and Hendrix Lapierre (one goal, two assists) did most of the early damage offensively and both Logan Thompson (14 saves on 16 shots) and Garin Bjorklund (stopped all 13 shots) were solid in the Washington nets.
Milano and Lapierre are among a group of several players vying for one or two available roster spots in Washington, and with less than two weeks between now and the Oct. 8 season opener against the Bruins – and only two more preseason games before Hershey opens its own camp – tonight’s game against the Flyers holds plenty of importance for Milano and Lapierre. They’re back in the lineup again, as is Ethen Frank, who had a sublime assist on Milano’s second goal in Boston.
Defenseman Vincent Iorio and winger Ivan Miroshnichenko are also seeing action for the second time in as many games; both also played well in Boston. As is the case with both Milano and Lapierre, the urgency to perform and land a spot is elevated for Iorio and Frank, both of whom would need to clear waivers if they don’t crack the Caps’ 23-man opening night roster.
“Vinnie, and I liked his game in Boston, I thought it was strong,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “it’s just going to be evaluating him through the preseason, and he’s going to get a lot of opportunity here, which will be good for him. And I thought Boston was a good start and a good steppingstone to his camp and to playing a significant amount of games.
“His game, it’s quiet. Less is more for him. When he is playing well, he is defending well, he’s moving pucks, he’s simple, you don’t notice him, and no real big mistakes whether it’s coverage or puck play. And he’s competing; you saw it the other night in Boston. He’s being physical when he can, he’s winning loose pucks, he’s winning net front situations.
“There’s not a lot of flash there, but there is a lot of value there. That’s his bread and butter and his identity as an NHL defenseman, and he knows that, so it’s just staying consistent with that as camp ramps up and as the games become more veteran-heavy, is continuing to show that through camp and into those games.”
Iorio led all skaters with 21:25 in ice time in the Caps’ preseason opener.
“And for Frankie,” begins Carbery, “I think it’s much of the same that we talked to Frankie about and what made him so successful when he came up last year is, how is he able to use his speed to impact the game five, six, seven times a night? Whether that’s with or without the puck, defensively and offensively.
“And then if he can chip in [offensively]. He has two Grade As the other night – really good chances – just misses on both of them, but he put himself in good spots, so there’s positives to that. The process was good, we just didn’t quite get the finish. But I think it’s going to be how can he continue to put his speed on display while maintaining all those good foundational things – wall play is always important for him, awareness, defensive assignment stuff is always important for him and he's done a really good job of that when he was in the NHL last year and at the start of camp.”
Frank made his NHL debut midway through last season, totaling four goals and seven points in 24 games with Washington.
“I think there was a few things away from the puck that we want to stay on Miro about, from a support, routes, and not getting beat in some situations,” says Carbery of Miroshnichenko. “But I thought he did a lot of good things as well. He makes a heck of a play to strip the Boston defender to create that [Bogdan Trineyev] goal. I loved that, and that’s what Miro needs to do, that tenaciousness, strength and physicality on the puck to win that situation.
“I think there was a lot of good, some things we can do a better job of, and some things he needs to do better and he knows that. As he builds his camp, those are the things that I’ll be looking for, to see if he can improve on those things while still getting himself into some of those opportunities offensively and creating.”
Andrew Cristall, who had a tremendous showing in the preseason a year ago, gets a sweater tonight as well. Cristall embarks upon his first season as a pro in 2025-26.
“The biggest thing that he’s going to need to show in this training camp,” begins Carbery on Cristall, “Take you back; he had a great camp last year. He made a lot of strong arguments to make the team coning out of camp, went to the bitter end, and we ended up sending him back to junior. We felt as an organization – not just for our team, but for his development – it was the best decision.
“This year, now pro eligible, so a lot of the things that he did last year that stuck out, and the offensive stuff is always going to be his bread and butter. The ability to make plays in tight areas, find and get his way out of offensive situations, whether it’s off entries or in the offensive zone. Make a play, keep a puck alive, do something really creative; that’s his bread and butter and it no doubt will always be.
“What I want to see from him is the part that is going to be his biggest challenge, and that’s playing in traffic, that’s being able to win one-on-one situations against big, physical defensemen. Create a turnover on a forecheck, be F1and find a way to win that situation against Philly’s [defense] or whoever the opponent is. It’s more about the things that aren’t – quote, unquote – going to be his bread and butter as a player, that I wasn’t to see if he can do that at a high level. The offensive stuff, he is as good as anybody we have in that department.
“So that will be what we’re looking for. How is his wall play? How is his ability to forecheck? How is he handling the hard areas of the ice?”
Band Of Brothers – With Aliaksei and Ilya Protas and Dylan and Matt Strome both expected to be in the lineup for the Capitals, Thursday’s game is expected to feature two sets of brothers from the same team, a relative rarity in recent NHL history. While the League doesn’t track the history of such occurrences during the preseason, it’s been more than 23 years since it happened in the regular season.
On March 17, 2002, Brad and Jeff Norton and Pavel and Valeri Bure of the Florida Panthers all played in the same game, a 2-0 loss to the Senators in Ottawa. That’s the last of 13 different combinations of brother pairings over the years, and the current 23-year gap between occurrences is the longest in League history.
For seven games in October of 1992, the Caps rolled out a lineup that included Dale and Mark Hunter along with Kelly and Kevin Miller, the lone instance of two sets of brothers playing simultaneously for Washington.
The NHL’s historic ledger of brotherly confluences is longer than you might expect; the first occurrence was more than 100 years ago, in a Jan. 30, 1924 game at Montreal’s Mount Royal Arena. On that night, Billy and Bobby Boucher and Odie and Sprague Cleghorn helped fuel the Canadiens’ 5-2 victory over the visiting Hamilton Tigers, midway through the League’s seventh season of existence. Only 10 players per team suited up in those days.
The early history of the game featured many instances of the Patrick brothers – Lynn and Muzz – who played together for the Rangers, a team coached by their father, the legendary Lester Patrick. Along with the two Patrick brothers, the Rangers also had the Colville brothers – Neil and Mac, who were from Edmonton – and there were dozens of instances of the four of them in the same game.
Altogether, there have been 13 different pairings of two sets of brothers on the same team in the same game in NHL history – regular season and playoffs – adding up to 361 games between the Bouchers and the Cleghorns in 1923-24 and the Bures and the Nortons in 2001-02.
Been Awhile – The last time the Caps played a preseason game in Hershey was 19 years ago Wednesday, on Sept. 24, 2006, in a game against the New Jersey Devils. That game was played late on a Sunday afternoon, and the Capitals remained in Hershey to conduct a practice the following day before returning to Ashburn, Va., where they conducted training camp that fall. Washington’s current MedStar Capitals Iceplex facility opened up in March of 2007, and the Caps have conducted each of their training camps there in Arlington since the autumn of 2007.
Another interesting wrinkle involving the previous occurrence in 2006 is that the game was played days after Hershey opened its own training camp in preparation for that 2006-07 season. The Bears are still days away from opening their 2025 training camp. By the time the Caps reached Hershey for that preseason tilt 19 years ago, they had already trimmed their camp roster down to 29 players. This time around, they’re still carrying over 50 players on the official camp roster.
The game itself didn’t go Washington’s way; the Devils prevailed 3-1. Hall of Fame goalie Martin Brodeur started and stopped all 13 shots he faced before yielding to Scott Clemmensen, who surrendered the Caps’ lone goal – off the stick of Ben Clymer, with help from Alexandre Giroux and Jakub Klepis – late in the third period of the game. Clemmensen finished with 20 saves.
For Brodeur, that preseason game marked his first game in Hershey since he was a member of the AHL Utica Devils in 1993.
Olie Kolzig stopped 15 pucks for the Caps in a losing effort; all three New Jersey goals came via special teams. David Clarkson and Zach Parise scored on the power play for the Devils and blueliner Olli Malmivaara – whose NHL career consisted of two games with New Jersey in 2007-08 – scored the game-winner while the Devils were shorthanded. Malmivaara was named the game’s No. 1 star, Brodeur was No. 2 and Clymer No. 3. Attendance was listed as 4,255.
“I admire New Jersey because they have a system and they play it,” said Caps coach Glen Hanlon afterwards. “They play it well. They’ve played it for years, and they’ll likely play it forever. You can see the players that aren’t used to playing that system trying to throw pucks through the middle and trying to beat people through the neutral zone, and we had zero success at doing it in the first period.”
New Jersey’s power play went 2-for-5 while the Caps were fruitless in eight extra-man opportunities.
Alex Ovechkin – then preparing for his second NHL season – was held out of the game as a precautionary measure; he injured his knee days earlier in Washington’s exhibition opener against Tampa Bay.
“We have to respect; we’re being very, very cautious,” said Hanlon of the team’s approach with its young superstar. “You’ve seen him in practice. If it was the regular season, he would have played.”
A year earlier – on Sept. 25, 2005, the Caps and Pittsburgh Penguins battled in a preseason game at Giant Center with Washington emerging victorious 3-2 on a pair of power-play goals from Brian Willsie. Jeff Halpern also scored on the power play as the Caps converted on three of a dozen (!) power play tries in that game.
Legends Never Die – Earlier in the week, the Flyers’ organization suffered a massive loss with the passing of legendary Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Bernie Parent, one of the giants of hockey in the City of Brotherly Love. Parent backstopped the Flyers to each of the franchise’s Stanley Cup titles, achieved in consecutive seasons in 1973-74 and 1974-75.
A native of Montreal, Parent started his NHL career in Boston during the Original Six era, but he came to Philadelphia in the 1967 expansion draft. After three and a half seasons in Philly, he was dealt to Toronto in a three-way deal (with Boston as the third team), a swap that netted the Flyers center Rick MacLeish, who became another crucial piece of those mid-’70s Cup championship teams.
Parent subsequently returned to Philly, but with the Philadelphia Blazers of the upstart World Hockey Association for the renegade hockey league’s maiden season in 1972-73. After leading the WHA with 33 wins in ’72-73, Parent’s NHL rights were swapped from Toronto back to the Flyers for a first-round draft pick plus goaltender Doug Favell, who had been Parent’s goaltending partner during his first stint with the Flyers.
Now in the prime of his career, Parent won consecutive Vezina Trophies and Conn Smythe Trophies as the “Broad Street Bullies” barreled their way to consecutive Cup championships behind the durable and indefatigable Parent. In 1973-74, Parent set NHL marks (both since broken) with 73 games played and 47 victories. He also led the NHL with a dozen shutouts and a 1.89 GAA. He led the NHL in wins (44) and GAA (2.04) again the following season, and he remains the only goalie in League history to win consecutive Vezina and Conn Smythe awards while hoisting the Cup both seasons as well.
Parent posted half a dozen playoff shutouts over those consecutive runs to the Cup, including whitewashes in both clinching games. He will always be a larger-than-life figure in Philly, where he was instrumental in launching the Flyers to arguably the best start of any of the six expansion teams that instantly doubled the League’s size from six to a dozen teams in 1967-68.
Parent was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984. He will forever be missed and never forgotten, not only in Philly but throughout the hockey world.
In The Nets – Charlie Lindgren and Clay Stevenson comprise the Caps’ netminding duo for tonight’s game. After Thompson and Bjorklund split the netminding chores down the middle in Boston, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Lindgren and Stevenson do the same tonight. Stevenson and Bjorklund comprise the projected netminding duo in Hershey for this season.
The Flyers are bringing ex-Bruins and ex-Flames goalie Dan Vladar; Philly signed him as a free agent in July. The Flyers are also bringing Aleksei Kolosov, a third-rounder from 2021 who saw action in 17 games with Philly last season, his first full pro campaign in North America.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we expect the Caps to look on Thursday night in Hershey as well as a roster of players the Flyers are expected to bring west with them:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
63-Miroshnichenko, 17-D. Strome, 9-Leonard
28-Cristall, 24-McMichael, 21-A. Protas
15-Milano, 29-Lapierre, 53-Frank
98-M. Strome, 62-I. Protas, 34-Sourdif
Defensemen
38-Sandin, 3-Roy
47-Chisholm, 52-McIlrath
93-Gucciardi, 2-Iorio
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
33-Stevenson
PHILADELPHIA
Forwards
11-Travis Konecny
12-Devin Kaplan
17-Jett Luchanko
18-Rodrigo Abols
20-Alex Bump
27-Noah Cates
29-Nikita Grebenkin
44-Nicolas Deslauriers
52-Denver Barkey
73-Jack Nesbitt
74-Owen Tippett
78-Jacob Gaucher
Defensemen
3-Helge Grans
5-Egor Zamula
8-Cam York
13-Adam Ginning
47-Noah Juulsen
48-Dennis Gilbert
Goaltenders
35-Aleksei Kolosov
80-Dan Vladar
