Busy Men – The Caps are back home for just one game, tonight’s tilt against the Calgary Flames, the first of four games in six nights this week for Washington. Tonight’s home game against the Flames and Saturday’s matinee match against Boston will be played here in DC, and those two games are sandwiched around a midweek set of back-to-backs on Wednesday in Philadelphia and Thursday in Buffalo.
Washington dropped a 3-2 decision here to the Utah Mammoth last Tuesday in its most recent home game, ending a five-game winning streak at Capital One Arena. The Caps have dropped three in a row overall (0-3-0) as they head into tonight’s game against the Flames, and the out-of-town scoreboard has also been highly unkind while the Caps have played – and lost – just two games in eight days since the beginning of March.
The two new players – defenseman Timothy Liljegren and center David Kampf – the Caps brought in ahead of last Friday’s NHL trade deadline practiced with their new teammates on Sunday and both participated in today’s morning skate. But neither will suit up for the Capitals tonight against Calgary.
“Kampf will not; he is still going through the immigration process,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “Liljegren will not; we just want to give him a couple of extra days to just get acclimated with the group, let him watch a game at Capital One, make sure he’s dialed in systematically. And with where we’re at with the year, we thought it would be a difficult spot to put him in into the lineup. So we’ll go with the same lineup.”
Calgary came back to author a 5-4 win over the Carolina Hurricanes at Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday night, stopping a four-game slide (0-3-1) in the process. Tonight, the Flames kick off a five-game road trip and a set of back-to-back games here in Washington; they’ll face the Rangers in New York on Tuesday.
“They played well; I watched a lot of it this morning,” says Carbery of the Flames’ most recent game. “Carolina scores first shift, and you're thinking, ‘Okay,’ but I thought Calgary did a real good job. I thought their pressure forced Carolina into a bunch of turnovers that Calgary was able to turn into offense. So, that was forecheck pressure, a couple of goalie handles that went askew for Carolina that ended up causing issues.
“We saw them fairly recently, so I think the guys have a pretty good handle [on them]. Fast team in transition, sneaky skill too. With their forwards, they've got some guys that, if you look at their numbers – and the stats pack won't do it justice – they've got some guys that are that are pretty slick, like the [Morgan] Frosts of the world, [Matt] Coronato, [Joel] Farabee. And even with the moves that they made, [they are] a transition team that you have to respect, and we looked at some of that this morning. They made some plays against us in their building that didn't end up in the back of our net, but they broke us down in a few different situations. So, we'll need to be able to defend the rush and make sure they're not getting in behind us in their transition.”
The 500 Club – Caps defenseman Matt Roy suits up for his 500th career contest in the National Hockey League tonight, doing so just over seven years after his NHL debut on Feb. 16, 2019 with the Kings in Los Angeles against the Boston Bruins. Roy was a seventh-round draft choice (194th overall) of the Kings in the 2015 NHL Draft, and he ended up playing more games (115) in his three-season collegiate career at Michigan Tech than he did in the AHL (102).
And Roy also holds the distinction of being called up just once; he has not returned to the AHL since his original recall.
Roy logged 11:32 in his NHL debut, but in the 10th game of his NHL career he logged 20-plus minutes for the first time. He enters tonight’s game with a career average of 19:40 per game, and he has averaged 20:44 in his 130 contests in a Capitals sweater.
“It was a whirlwind,” remembers Roy of his debut. “I remember I got called up after a game in Ontario [Calif.] on Friday in the American League, and I was actually a little stressed out because I had a little exam I had to do, so I had to email my professors at the time and take care of that stuff.
“But it was awesome, the experience of getting called up, the excitement and the nerves and all of that, it was a lot to take in and it was such a cool experience. I had a lot of older guys on the team that were so welcoming, and they took care of me.”
First off, it’s difficult to imagine Matt Roy being “a little stressed out” over anything. He is one of the most level, even-tempered people I’ve ever been around. Second, it’s wild to look back and see that the Kings went 1-8-2 in Roy’s first 11 games, and his nightly ice time essentially doubled from the first to last game of that stretch. Third, Roy was penalized for interference midway through his NHL debut, and didn’t take another penalty across the 11-game span. That remains a part of the Roy brand; he usually gets the job done without breaking the law to do it.
And finally, Roy was even across those rugged first 11 NHL games in 2019, the second-best mark on the team across that stretch. Only Adrian Kempe (plus-1) was better among all Los Angeles skaters. Future Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Drew Doughty was an uncharacteristic minus-10 in those 11 games, including a 3-2 loss to the Capitals in Los Angeles in Roy’s second NHL contest.
For the first 498 games of his career, Roy had the luxury of calling either Doughty or John Carlson his teammate, so he was able to watch and learn from two of the very best right-handed defensemen of this era.
“A ton to be honest, on and off the ice,” says Roy, asked what he learned from that dynamic defensive duo. “They’re both true pros, they’re both so good at what they do, and honestly, I was just a sponge around them. I just took everything in and watched the little details that they did on and off the ice.
“And it’s time for me to step up now, and hopefully I can do that for the younger guys on our team.”
All Better – Six years ago tonight in Buffalo, the Capitals played what proved to be the last of their 69 regular season games in that 2019-20 season, days ahead of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. What was noteworthy about that game in Buffalo – a 3-2 shootout loss – is that Washington was playing with a full deck that night; all of the players on its roster were healthy and available to play that night.
Fast forward almost six years, and we were virtually certain that Saturday’s game in Boston marked the next time after that March 9, 2020 game that the Capitals played with a full complement of healthy players, as they will do tonight against Calgary.
With that in mind, I checked with Capitals director of sports medicine and head athletic trainer Jason Serbus after Saturday’s game to double-check that factoid with him. During Sunday’s practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, he informed me the information was “bang on.”
All last season, the Caps had T.J. Oshie on long term injured reserve. They’ve had the likes of Carl Hagelin, Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson, Max Pacioretty and others on that list, over the last several years, and whenever that list has been clean, they’ve had at least one player unavailable for all 447 regular season games they played over that span (237-156-54, .591).
When the Caps faced Utah here last Tuesday, defenseman John Carlson was the only player on injured reserve. When he was dealt to Anaheim on Friday, the Caps became fully healthy for the first time in almost exactly six years.
In The Nets – Logan Thompson starts tonight for the Capitals. He has been sharp lately, allowing two or fewer goals against in four of his last five starts. Over the weekend, Thompson was tremendous in a 27-save performance against the Bruins in Boston, but he was a hard luck 3-1 loser as the B’s tacked on a late empty-net goal.
A Calgary native, Thompson is also typically sharp against his hometown team. He stopped 25 shots in a 3-1 victory over the Flames in Alberta on Jan. 23.
Lifetime against the Flames, Thompson is 5-3-0 in eight appearances – all starts – with a 2.32 GAA and a .930 save pct.
In his first full NHL season, 28-year-old Devin Cooley gets the start for Calgary tonight. He lanky – 6-foot-5, 192 pounds – Californian owns a 7-7-4 record this season, but his .923 save pct. is easily tops in the NHL among goaltenders with at least 20 appearances this season; Colorado’s Scott Wedgewood is second at .916.
Cooley stopped 35 of 37 shots the Caps sent in his direction on Jan. 23 in Calgary, but he came out on the losing end of a 3-1 decision that night in what is his lone career appearance against Washington entering tonight’s tilt.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Caps and the Flames might look on Monday night in the District:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 72-Beauvillier
21-Protas, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
24-McMichael, 34-Sourdif, 9-Leonard
22-Duhaime, 29-Lapierre, 53-Frank
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 3-Roy
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
47-Chisholm, 38-Sandin
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Healthy Extras
27-Liljegren
52-McIlrath
63-Miroshnichenko
64-Kampf
Injured/Out
None
CALGARY
Forwards
86-Farabee, 16-Frost, 20-Coleman
47-Zary, 22-R. Strome, 92-Gridin
95-Olofsson, 11-Backlund, 27-Coronato
70-Lomberg, 17-Sharangovich, 43-Klapka
Defensemen
7-Bahl, 37-Kuznetsov
3-Maatta, 94-Pachal
44-Hanley, 19-Parekh
Goalies
32-Wolf
1-Cooley
Healthy Extras
18-Beecher
48-Brzustewicz
76-Pospisil
Injured/Out
10-Huberdeau (hip)
24-Bean (undisclosed)
28-Whitecloud (upper body)
29-Honzek (upper body)
