Grand Junction – A week ago Saturday night in Vancouver, Caps winger T.J. Oshie skated in his 1,000th NHL game, a 2-1 Washington win over the Canucks at Rogers Arena. Prior to today’s game with the Winnipeg Jets, the Caps will honor Oshie’s career and his achievement with a pregame ceremony at Capital One Arena.
Best of all, Oshie is expected to be back in the lineup today after missing the last two contests with an upper body injury.
“He makes a huge difference,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “I find even of late, we’re missing a little bit of his poise with the puck, his calming presence on the ice when things get a little bit scrambly and we start to lose momentum. He’s a guy that can – not only with his voice and that stuff; I‘ll leave that stuff alone from a leadership standpoint – calm things down on the ice, because he can find a way out of a situation with a lot of poise and confidence.
“A lot of times you get in those scenarios, and there’s panic, there’s icings, there’s turnovers. Whereas he handles those situations as good as anybody I’ve been around with his poise. I think that shows up a lot when we’ve lost momentum in a game, he can really help a team a lot in those situations.”
The Caps have four wins in their last five games (4-1-0) and they are 11-5-1 in their last 17 games as they make a late push for a berth in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Jetfighter – Thirteen days ago in Winnipeg, the Caps opened a five-game road trip with a clunker of a performance against the Jets in Manitoba’s capital city. Washington fell 3-0 on that Monday night, but that score likely wasn’t indicative of how much the Jets outplayed the Capitals.
“It was as difficult a match-up [as we’ve had],” says Carbery. “We’ve had some worse outcomes score-wise this year, but analytically, one of our worst games of the year. This team gives us some serious issues, or they did in that game in their building.
“So, we need to be very cognizant of the things that they do well when their [defensemen] pressure; we talked about it yesterday with their ability to pinch down, and our wingers’ wall play is going to be huge. Our ability to exit [our zone is important]. We really struggled to get out of our own end cleanly.
“There’s a bunch more stuff, but then you even go into some of the [offensive] zone, they’re really good skating, offensive team. It’s not the high-end east-west stuff – they’ve got a few guys who will mix that in – but it’s moreso their ability to hold onto pucks, skate it out of pressure, get it up high to their [defensemen]. And their [defensemen] are very mobile laterally, so they’ll get a puck up top, they’ll change the shot angle, and all of a sudden, it’s a sifter to the net, and a tip. They scored a couple goals against us in their building like that, scored another one last night; [Cole] Perfetti walks high, sifts it to the net – tip, goal, back of the net.
“We need to do a better job there, and then conversely, in the offensive zone, we’re going to have to find a way to stress them, not only with our forecheck, but [goaltender Connor] Hellebuyck, if he’s in the net. And frankly, both [goaltenders], whichever guy plays. We’re going to have to do a way better job than we did in their building of stressing not only their [defense] on our forecheck, but also the net front area, their crease, the goaltender, getting opportunities.
“We had some good looks in their building, but these two guys with the way that they’ve played this year, if they see the shot, if they’re square to the shot, they’re going to save it. So it has to be a rebound, it has to be a screen, havoc in and around the net, like the Connor McMichael goal against Carolina. Things like that are going to have to be our recipe to offensive success tonight.”
Sonny Feeling – Coming off the first hat trick of his NHL career on Friday night against Carolina, Caps winger Sonny Milano is slated to skate in his 300th NHL game on Sunday against the Jets.
A first-round pick (16th overall) of the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2014 NHL Draft, Milano made his debut eight years ago this month – as a 19-year-old – in a March 31, 2016 game against the Islanders at Barclays Center. Milano also scored his first NHL goal against the Islanders, on Oct. 6, 2017 – opening night of the 2017-18 season. Milano scored at 1:05 of the first period – his first shift of the season – against the Isles’ Thomas Greiss at Nationwide Arena in Columbus.
Signed as a free agent by the Capitals on Oct. 15, 2022, he debuted with the Caps on Nov. 5, 2022. Less than a week later, on Nov. 11, 2022, he scored his first two goals with the Caps in the same game – adding an assist for a three-point night – in a 5-1 win over the Lightning.
Milano has 13 goals in just 38 games with the Caps this season, and he is one goal shy of matching his career best, established in 2017-18 with Columbus and matched in 2021-22 with Anaheim. Among all NHL skaters with at least 10 goals this season, Milano’s gaudy 31.7% shooting percentage is tops in the League.
At the end of last week’s road trip out west, Milano was skating on a line with Max Pacioretty and Hendrix Lapierre, a trio that excelled at driving play and creating scoring opportunities during its brief time together, which coincided with a three-game winning streak. Some injuries and absences elsewhere in the lineup led to some changes in the forward groupings in the front two games on this homestand, but the three were impressive together, and hopefully we’ll get a longer look at them at some point.
“I really like playing with them,” said Pacioretty, earlier in the week. “We want to get out there a little bit more than we have, but we feel like we’ve been contributing.
“Sonny’s a really underrated player. I knew about him before I came here, but as soon as I started playing with him, I realized that he has that offensive instinct, and he’s sneaky good defensively. He always seems to win his battles and get pucks out, he’s really good at hunting puck on the forecheck.
“And Lappy – since the last time he has been up – has been an entirely different player in the sense that he is playing with a lot of confidence. I don’t know if he went down there and produced offensively and found that spark, but he has definitely brought that up here and has given the team some life and some energy.
“I really like my linemates. I thought we had a really good game [Monday night in Calgary], and hopefully we can prove to the coach that we can play some more.”
Entering today’s game, Milano has skated in 102 games for Washington, 116 for Columbus and 81 for Anaheim. He has scored 24 of his 60 career goals with the Caps, netting 20 with the Jackets and 16 with Anaheim.
In The Nets – Charlie Lindgren gets the nod in net today for Washington. Lindgren came on in relief of Darcy Kuemper after the second period in Friday’s thrilling 7-6 shootout victory over Carolina. Lindgren stopped seven of nine shots he faced in the third period and overtime, and he stopped all five shootout attempts to claim the victory.
Today, Lindgren is seeking his 20th victory of the season. Lifetime against Winnipeg, Lindgren is 2-1-0 with a 2.00 GAA and a .930 save pct. in three career appearances, all starts.
Winnipeg played and lost 6-3 on Saturday afternoon against the Islanders in New York. Hellebuyck started that game, but he was relieved by Laurent Brossoit after yielding five goals against on 26 shots in 29:11 of work.
Either netminder could be the starter today, but ex-Caps’ assistant coach Scotty Arniel – now a Jets’ assistant who is filling in for head coach Rick Bowness – didn’t name his starter, so we won’t learn the identity of today’s Winnipeg netminder until pregame warmups.
Hellebuyck is 5-4-2 lifetime against Washington, with a pair of shutouts, a 2.16 GAA and a .929 save pct. in 11 appearances, all starts. Brossoit is 0-0-2 lifetime against the Capitals, with a 1.85 GAA and a .929 save pct. in two appearances, both starts.
All Lined Up – Here’s how the Caps and the Jets might look on Sunday afternoon in Washington:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 24-McMichael, 77-Oshie
63-Miroshnichenko, 17-Strome, 21-Protas
67-Pacioretty, 29-Lapierre, 15-Milano
47-Malenstyn, 26-Dowd, 96-Aubé-Kubel
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)
43-Wilson (NHL suspension)
Scratches
23-Sgarbossa
25-Bear
45-Phillips
WINNIPEG
Forwards
81-Connor, 55-Scheifele, 9-Iafallo
27-Ehlers, 23-Monahan, 73-Toffoli
62-Niederreiter, 17-Lowry, 22-Appleton
36-Barron, 7-Namestnikov, 91-Perfetti
Defensemen
44-Morrissey, 2-DeMelo
5-Dillon, 4-Pionk
54-Samberg, 88-Schmidt
Goaltenders
37-Hellebuyck
39-Brossoit
Injured/Out
13-Vilardi (upper body)
Scratches
6-Miller
15-Kupari
19-Gustafsson
64-Stanley
