Oct. 7 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: TNT, HBO MAX
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio Network
Pittsburgh Penguins (2-1-0)
Washington Capitals (1-1-0)
Wednesday night in Washington, the Caps will kick off the home portion of their 2026-27 regular season slate when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins at Capital One Arena. Wednesday’s contest also kicks off a three-game homestand for the Caps, and it starts the team’s home-heaviest stretch of the season. Starting with the game against the Pens, the Caps will play 11 of their next 13 games at home.
In opening the regular season with a rugged set of back-to-back games last weekend, the Caps earned a split. They dropped the defending champion Hurricanes by a 5-2 count on Friday before absorbing a 3-1 setback at the hands of the Lightning in Tampa Bay a night later.
After a day off on Sunday and a couple of good practices on Monday and Tuesday, the Caps will take to their home ice sheet for the first time in nearly six months. Pittsburgh was the last team into town at the tail end of last season – on April 12 – and the Penguins will provide the opposition for the first of Washington’s 42 home games this season.
Defenseman Matt Roy, who departed Saturday’s game with the Lightning with a lower body injury, has not practiced with the team these last two days, but Caps coach Spencer Carbery stopped short of ruling him out of Wednesday’s game.
“Roysie didn’t practice today,” says Carbery. “Still, we’re going to call him day-to-day. As far as [Wednesday], we’ll see in the morning. But yeah, we’re going to need to see some significant improvement by then.”
Dylan McIlrath would slot in for Roy in the lineup if the latter is unable to play in the home opener.
“Everyone is going to have to do a little bit more,” says Carbery. “Matt Roy is a huge part of our [defense] corps, a huge part of that right side. So, it's going to require [Timothy Liljegren] and Vinny Desharnais to take on a little bit bigger piece of the pie. But also, on the left side, it's going to also require [Jakob Chychrun], Cole [Hutson], and Marty [Fehervary] to do a little bit more as well, so we'll ask a little bit more of all those guys in Roy's absence if he can't go, and a great opportunity for Dylan McIlrath.”
Since Saturday’s loss to the Lightning, Carbery has also flipped the right wings on the Dylan Strome and Justin Sourdif lines. Anthony Beauvillier moves to the right side of Strome’s line with Alex Ovechkin, and that’s a trio that saw plenty of time together last season. With more than 400 minutes of ice time together at even strength last season, that combination was the Caps’ most frequently deployed forward trio.
Ryan Leonard opened the season on Strome’s line, and he has skated the right side of a line with Sourdif and Boone Jenner during practice these last two days. Last season, the duo of Leonard and Sourdif logged more than 250 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time together. During that time, they outscored the opposition by a margin of 19-8 for a gaudy 70.37 percent GF rate.
Carbery stressed that the switch was not punitive in any sense and he went on to explain his rationale for the flip; which involves giving Leonard more well-rounded minutes. The Strome line is deployed almost exclusively in the offensive zone, and Carbery wants his young winger – who has yet to reach the 100-game mark in the NHL – to be able to handle a variety of zone draw assignments.
“As a staff, we felt like getting Leno [on a different line] because we deploy Stromer and O in such a unique way,” says Carbery. “I just want to make sure that which Stromer and O are so used to and so comfortable with, and understand the matchups that we're after, and understand their deployment from an [offensive] zone start standpoint.
“And I just felt like putting Leno in that, I want him to play in some more defensive situations. I want him to – not only because I think he can do well in that [role] – handle those. I want him to develop because he's worked really hard at it, and I've seen some really positive signs of growth in his game in that department, so it's not a huge, significant move. Yeah, optically it's like, ‘Huh, that's weird.’ But from a minutes standpoint, he might even play more 5-on-5 minutes with Sourdie’s line.
“If you're thinking any bit of that is a demotion based on Ryan Leonard's play in the first two games, [it’s] absolutely false and not the case at all, because I thought he's shown really well in the first two games and I've been really impressed with the player that he looks like this year comparatively to last year. So, it's just a matter of putting him on a different line that has a little bit of a different deployment – and I use them differently – if that makes any sense.”
Indeed, it makes sense. Leonard is the relatively rare player who was NHL-ready enough to skip past a minor league apprenticeship, so developing and honing aspects of his game at this level makes sense, especially given his age and experience level. We’ve seen the success Strome and Ovechkin are capable of with Beauvillier riding shotgun, and it’ll be intriguing to get a look at the two youngsters alongside the wise and wizened veteran Jenner.
“Just so much confidence, whether it’s [defensive] zone, neutral zone or [offensive] zone,” says Sourdif, asked about having the former Columbus captain on his line. “He’s always in a great spot, always communicating on the bench and on the ice. So, you always know where to be, you know what to expect out of him. He’s a veteran guy, he’s a leader, and we look up to him.
“And I think we’re going to work well together, a lot of speed, smarts. We all play physical, play hard in all three zones, so I’m looking forward to it. We’re just going to have to communicate and keep talking to each other, and we’ll try to build chemistry as quickly as possible.”
The Jenner-Sourdif-Leonard line carries a lefty and a righty to take draws. And southpaw Jenner is one of the best in the business on the dot, bringing a streak of 11 straight seasons with a face-off percentage above 50 percent into this season. Among all NHL players with at least 8,000 draws since 2016-16, Jenner ranks 15th with a 54.2 percent success rate.
“You've seen Jenner through the first two games how valuable he is in the dot,” says Carbery. “And what I appreciate about his face-offs, he's got a bunch of different tricks. A lot of guys [like Nic Dowd], John Tavares; I always remember this. John Tavares is incredible. He has one way [to win draws]. He goes low on the hosel, and he just wins with power. And it's the same way every time.
“Where you look at Boone, he's got a couple different moves that he uses, which is cool because a centerman, it's a cat and mouse. He uses he does the tie-up, kick; he does some different stuff that I've noticed, and he's won a lot of draws, even some of the PK ones that we'd ideally like to get some clears on. He won a ton of those in in Carolina.”
Pittsburgh has been an offensive machine in the first week of the new season. After bashing the Flyers 7-0 in their season opener in Philly last Wednesday, the Pens rang up a six-pack in a 6-5 win over Montreal in their own home opener on Saturday. Most recently, the Pens suffered their first setback of the young season on Monday in Pittsburgh, 3-2 to ex-Caps goalie Clay Stevenson and the Winnipeg Jets.
Former Caps Trevor van Riemsdyk and Hendrix Lapierre were both with Washington when the two teams last met on April 12. Van Riemsdyk signed with Pittsburgh as a free agent on July 1, and Lapierre was dealt to the Pens days earlier. Both will be making their homecomings in DC; van Riemsdyk skated in 387 games here over six seasons and Lapierre logged 161 contests in four campaigns.
