Pacific Northwestern Blues – A night after a lopsided loss in Edmonton, the Caps will attempt to steer out of a two-game tailspin against the Kraken in Seattle in the middle match of their five-game road trip out west. The Caps have dropped each of their first two games on the trip, their first set of consecutive regulation losses in over a month.
Tonight marks their third trip to the Emerald City, and they’re still seeking their first ever victory at Climate Pledge Arena. Washington dropped a 5-2 decision here in November of 2021, and they fell 3-2 in overtime just over a year later.
The Caps will make a couple of lineup changes tonight; Alex Alexeyev is in for Ethan Bear on the blueline and Aliaksei Protas returns to the lineup after a one-game absence because of a lower body injury. He will replace Nicolas Aubé-Kubel. Charlie Lindgren gets the start in net for Washington.
Six Months In A Leaky Boat – In the trip opener in Winnipeg, Washington’s forecheck was mostly non-existent; the Caps couldn’t get established in the offensive zone and they found themselves under siege in their own end for too much of the game.
“I thought it was a combination of a lot of stuff [Monday] night,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery, “puck placement being one, decision making through the neutral zone of when we have numbers, when we’re generating a controlled entry, and when we aren’t. I felt like it was more before we even got to the point of being able to look at our numbers, routes, assignments, and structural parts of it – I felt like that was the first part – and then just our ability as F1 to kill play. As you arrive on that puck, we’ve got to do a way better job of at least keeping that puck in a tight area, when we’re arriving on time, with a good stick and some physicality when we can. That was non-existent [Monday] night.”
Washington worked on the forecheck at Tuesday’s practice in Edmonton, and it was better in Wednesday’s loss to the Oilers. But it still has a lot of room for improvement, just from the standpoint of keeping the Caps from having to defend in their own end as much as they had to do in the first two games of the trip. They’ve been out-attempted 112-82 at 5-on-5 in the first two games of the journey, controlling just 42.3 percent of shot attempts.
“I think the big thing for us on the forecheck was just getting the first guy stopped, and then having the other two guys read off that and then come in to collect the puck,” says Caps’ center Connor McMichael. “Before [Monday’s game in Winnipeg] we were committed to getting pucks in, and we were all playing connected, and we knew where the puck was going to end up next. [Against the Jets], we were trying to – especially in the neutral zone – make a lot of plays that we weren’t able to connect on. I think it’s just getting back to how we were playing before.
“If you look at the Chicago and Pittsburgh games, we were getting all of our success off of getting pucks in and playing as a unit of five, rather than one guy trying to make a play, and then kind of hope it gets through a couple of feet or sticks, or whatever it may be. I think we’ve got a good forechecking group. All year long, we’ve been able to retrieve pucks and make things happen off the cycle, and to find slot plays. I think that’s what we need to get back to.”
Getting back to the connectedness and predictability that fueled the 7-2-1 the Caps were able to forge just ahead of this trip is paramount. For them, the forecheck isn’t so much the bread and butter of their offense – as it is for teams such as Florida and Carolina – but it’s a necessary element of their game to erode the energy of the opposition and to alleviate pressure on their own defense and netminder.
“For us, the forecheck above all else maybe isn’t always creating offense,” says Washington winger Beck Malenstyn. “It’s creating momentum, it’s creating that zone time, it’s managing a game, making a team defend that’s more comfortable on the offensive side of the puck, and things like that. I think for us obviously, it’s a huge focus to be able to get that puck in with bodies, with numbers, and create possession.
“You’re going to get a chance or two off the rush, and you hope you can execute that, but more often than not, you’ve got good skating players that are going to hold tight gaps, and you’re going to have to be willing to put it behind them and get it back. It’s a strength of our group when we’re doing it as a whole, and if we can get back to that, we’re going to be successful.”
Carbery also thought the forecheck was better on Wednesday in Edmonton. But as is sometimes the case with a younger team – and especially a younger team going up against an elite team with Stanley Cup aspirations – you can plug one hole in the boat, only to have another leak sprung elsewhere on the vessel.
“That’s kind of a product of our group,” says Carbery. “When we get to work on certain areas of our game, our guys are really coachable; we do a good job. But then usually it springs a leak in a different area, and then we’re patchwork on that.
“The forecheck was a lot better. We created some good opportunities, but then you saw [poor] puck decisions came back into our game – just throwing pucks away, careless on entries, turning pucks over where now all of a sudden, you give a team like Edmonton the puck for the majority of the night, eventually they’re going to break you down.
“We’ve just got to try to plug all those holes in all those areas of our game, and to put that together in the most critical point in our season.”
Count To Ten – Caps winger Tom Wilson is expected to skate in his 743rd NHL game tonight, which will slide him past Brooks Laich and into 10th place on Washington’s all-time list. Wilson joins teammates Alex Ovechkin (1,408), Nicklas Backstrom (1,105) and John Carlson (991) in Washington’s top 10.
In The Nets – Lindgren gets the net for Washington tonight in Seattle. Before Darcy Kuemper got the start in Edmonton on Wednesday, Lindgren had started six straight games and nine of the previous 10.
In five March starts, Lindgren is 3-2-0 with a shutout, a 2.02 GAA and a .933 save pct. Lindgren won his lone career start against Seattle, stopping 25 of 26 shots in a Dec. 9, 2022 victory over the Kraken in Washington.
Joey Daccord gets the start for Seattle tonight. Daccord defeated the Caps in the District two months ago in his first career start against Washington, stopping 25 of 26 shots to help the Kraken to its eighth straight victory on Jan. 11. He is 17-13-10 on the season, but 2-5-1 in his last eight appearances.
All Lined Up – Here’s how the Caps and the Kraken might look on Thursday night in Seattle:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 29-Lapierre, 77-Oshie
15-Milano, 17-Strome, 63-Miroshnichenko
67-Pacioretty, 24-McMichael, 43-Wilson
47-Malenstyn, 26-Dowd, 21-Protas
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
38-Sandin, 3-Jensen
27-Alexeyev, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
35-Kuemper
Injured/Out
19-Backstrom (lower body)
Scratches
23-Sgarbossa
25-Bear
96-Aubé-Kubel
SEATTLE
Forwards
90-Tatar, 10-Beniers, 7-Eberle
52-Kartye, 19-McCann, 95-Burakovsky
20-Tolvanen, 37-Gourde, 22-Bjorkstrand
56-Yamamoto, 41-Bellemare, 13-Tanev
Defensemen
8-Dumoulin, 6-Larsson
24-Oleksiak, 3-Borgen
39-Evans, 4-Schultz
Goaltenders
35-Daccord
31-Grubauer
Injured/Out
17-Schwartz (upper body)
29-Dunn (upper body)
Scratches
8-Fleury
