September 18 vs. Boston Bruins at Capital One Arena

Time: 7:00 p.m.

TV: NBCSW

Radio: Capitals Radio 24/7

On Sunday afternoon in Boston, the Capitals played the first of seven preseason games in a 2-1 shootout loss to the Bruins. On Tuesday night in the District, the Caps and B's will hook up in a rematch in the first of Washington's three home exhibition games.

After just two days worth of training camp, a group of 20 Capitals took a Sunday morning flight to Boston for the first of seven preseason games for Washington this fall, a Sunday matinee match against the Bruins.

Boston prevailed in a shootout, 2-1.

September 16 vs. Boston Bruins at TD Garden

Time: 1:00 p.m.

TV: NBCSW

Radio: Capitals Radio 24/7

It's hard to believe, but it's been seven years since the Capitals used their sixth-round choice (177th overall) in the 2011 NHL Draft on Travis Boyd, a center with the U.S. National Team Development Program. Boyd was just 17 at the time, and he was the youngest player drafted in 2011.

After four years at the University of Minnesota - where he dreamed of playing since he was three years old - and three full seasons with the AHL Hershey Bears, Boyd finally has a legitimate chance of cracking the Capitals' opening night roster this season. His bid for a berth on the roster and in the lineup began in earnest on Friday, his 25th birthday and the first day of training camp in preparation for the 2018-19 NHL season.

With apologies to Dinah Washington, what a difference a year makes.

At this time in 2017, the Capitals were still smarting from yet another early playoff exit at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins. They were dealing with a difficult offseason in which a handful of stalwart players departed the District via expansion, trade or free agency. They felt the squeeze of the salary cap that led to some of those aforementioned transactions. And they had a head coach who was heading into the final year of his contract.

After six days in the Florida heat and humidity, the Caps are heading home from the 2018 Prospect Showcase in Estero, Fla. The Caps kids showed well at the three-team showcase, posting a 2-1 record in the wake of an 8-5 win over Nashville on Tuesday, a barnburner of a tournament finale.

All of the early alarms went off on time - well before sunrise - and there was more than enough coffee to go around. When the Capitals took to the ice on Monday against the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Prospect Showcase in Estero, Fla., they were - to a man - punched in and on the clock right from the opening puck drop. Hockey games at 10 on Monday mornings are rare, fortunately, but the Caps got their workweek off to rousing start.

It's been just over three months since the Caps earned the right to hoist the Stanley Cup, and the time to defend that championship is now drawing near. Training camp for the 2018-19 regular season gets underway in less than a week, but between now and then a group of young Caps hopefuls is in Florida for the 2018 Prospect Showcase at Germain Arena in Estero.

The first game of a new hockey season is rarely a work of art, and so it was for the Capitals and the Nashville Predators on Saturday afternoon in the opening contest of the 2018 Prospect Showcase. Mistakes, turnovers and penalties were more prevalent than flow on both sides, and the Preds skated off with a 5-4 come-from-behind victory over the Caps.

With main training camp less than a week away, the main purpose of the tourney is to enable the young players to find their legs and to ease their way back into the impending season against their peers ahead of training camp, when many of them will graduate from playing against boys to playing against men for the first time.

Stanley spends an August weekend in the Swedish hockey hotbed of Gävle