Goin’ To Dallas – The Caps are taking the last of their October road journeys, a one-game excursion to Dallas to face the Stars. Both teams are missing some key performers from their respective lineups for this one.
“It's interesting,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “You look around the league, there's a lot of teams dealing with a lot of injuries right now, so they're no different. We're no different with [Dylan Strome] and [Rasmus Sandin] not playing tonight, but it gives good opportunity for a lot of guys early in the season. They're playing well right now, and hopefully we can find our footing on the road here in Dallas tonight.”
Forward As One – With leading scorer Dylan Strome out of the lineup and listed as day-to-day with a lower body injury, the Caps recalled winger Ethen Frank from AHL Hershey. And since Strome is a center, his absence results in some lineup shifting. Two of Washington’s forward lines are familiar; P-L Dubois centers for Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson, and Nic Dowd centers for Brandon Duhaime and Justin Sourdif. We’ve seen a fair amount of those two trios together.
The other two lines are newer in composition. Connor McMichael centers for Alex Ovechkin and Ryan Leonard and Hendrix Lapierre mans the middle of a trio with Anthony Beauvillier and Frank.
McMichael has played a fair amount with Ovechkin over the years, but he has rarely centered for him, as he’ll be doing tonight. And 20-year-old Leonard, who is gradually morphing into an excellent player before our eyes, is on the other side.
“Lenny is really tenacious on pucks, really fast, really smart, skilled,” says McMIchael. “I think me and him should be able to click pretty well, win some pucks back, and try and get some shots on net for [Ovechkin]. I think it’s going to work well.”
Leonard and Ovechkin have spent just under a dozen minutes playing together at 5-on-5 since the former ascended to the NHL in April.
“I obviously have a chance to play alongside one of the greats of all time,” says Leonard. “I’m trying not to take it for granted and to just not really change what I’m doing. But I’ll maybe look to get him the puck if it happens.”
Lapierre began the season centering the Caps’ third line. He was a healthy extra in the third game of the season, and he has played mostly left wing – and has played well – since. Now, he returns to his natural and most comfortable position in the middle of the ice as the Caps try to mitigate the loss of Strome.
“As I’ve said before, I think I can do whatever the coaching staff wants me to do,” says Lapierre. “I think it’s been going really well on wing, but I also feel comfortable down the middle. Whatever they need me to do, I’ll be right there.”
Lapierre and Frank have some chemistry together from their days in Hershey together, and Beauvillier is a highly adaptable veteran who can play either wing on any line.
“We've had success at the AHL level,” says Lapierre. “And I know his tendencies and the way he plays, so I think that can help us a lot. And being paired with a guy like Beau – who is incredibly smart, too – I think we can have success. It'll be good. [Frank] is fast, he's got a good shot. I’ve just got to get the puck in his hands, and good things will happen.”
Frank has played two games with the Caps this season, and he stood out in Friday’s win over the Blue Jackets in Columbus, making strong plays at both ends of the ice, being noticeable with his speed, and picking up a primary assist on the power play. The following day, he was loaned to Hershey, a victim of the numbers game when Dubois returned to the lineup after a five-game absence with a lower body injury.
“Obviously you feel for Stromer,” says Frank. “I hope he'll be back as soon as possible and make a speedy recovery. But I'm sure Lappy is just as excited as I am. Obviously, we have some history with Hershey and some chemistry there, and we know how fast Beau can play, and so I'm sure we'll be looking to push the pace and play a fast and offensive game.”
The Caps conducted a Monday morning practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex prior to their departure for Dallas, and Carbery noted that his team’s forward group is currently in a state of flux.
“The reality is we're trying to find a lot of things in our forward group right now,” says Carbery. “It's one area of our game – or of our roster right now – that just hasn't, for whatever reason, started the year that we would have liked, from a chemistry standpoint, from a production standpoint, for a lot of guys. Let's just go production wise. You could probably argue that eight or nine guys are under where they would like to be nine games into the season.
“So, we're trying to search for it now. Part of my job is to figure out what combinations are going to work. Losing Dylan Strome now creates an even bigger hole or a bigger challenge, and then just trying to piece it together with what potentially could be successful for [tonight’s game].
Possession wise, the Caps are faring well at 5-on-5. They have controlled 54.73 percent of all shot attempts at 5-on-5 in their nine games to date, ranking fourth in the NHL. They rank ninth in share of shots on goal at 53.2 percent, and their expected goals share at 5-on-5 is 55.66 percent, third highest in the League. Washington is also fourth in the NHL in high danger scoring chance share at 58.68.
In their most recent game, an ugly 7-1 setback at the hands of the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night in DC, the Caps were only out-attempted by a 57-54 count at all strengths, and those numbers could be slanted a bit by score effects, for sure. The Caps were down by three goals just a few minutes into the second period, so they were chasing offense and the game for the rest of the way. But a breakdown of those attempts reveals an utter lack of success.
Ottawa put 34 shots on the Washington net, it had a dozen shots blocked, and it missed the mark with 11 attempts. The Caps, on the other hand, generated just 13 shots on net (only six through the game’s first 40 minutes) while getting 25 shots blocked and seeing 16 bids miss the mark. The Sens put 60 percent of their shot attempts on net while Washington managed to do so at a rate of 24 percent.
Even with their paltry total of 13 shots on net in Saturday’s game, the Caps are averaging 29.7 shots on net per game, ninth in the NHL. Washington is also averaging 16.9 missed shots per game; only Carolina, Anaheim and Colorado have higher rates of missed shots.
“It starts to show up in a little bit of pressing at times, uncharacteristic decision-making, forcing the issue,” says Carbery. “We were talking about this this morning as a staff; you start to even press defensively when you don’t have the puck, when you’re trying to do something offensively.
‘I know that doesn’t really seem like it makes sense, but I’ll give you an example of when you’re really trying to make an impact offensively – score a goal, be on the ice for a 5-on-5 goal. Now, when you don’t have the puck, sometimes you press even harder, and now you get out of position because you want to get it back, because you’re trying to score so bad.
“Well, now you've just put us in a tough spot, because now we're out of position. Now we're vulnerable defensively. Now if the [opponent] is good enough to take advantage of that and seize that opportunity. Well, now you're probably giving up a chance, and in your head, you were like, ‘Well, my objective here was try to help the team, and now I'm hurting the team defensively.’
“And so I think you saw some of that against Ottawa. We make some really poor [plays], lose some 1-on-1 situations that just can't happen. And credit to them, they take advantage.”
Chasing pucks and trying to get them back could be a more common occurrence without Strome, too. The Caps rank 24th in the League with a 47.9 percent face-off win rate, and they’ll be missing their top player on the dot, Strome, at 56.6 percent. He’s also their most frequently deployed draw man; Strome has taken 31 percent of all Washington face-offs this season and he has accounted for 36.1 percent of its face-off wins.
With him out of the picture, the rest of the team has won 44.1 percent of its draws, which would rank the team 30th in the League.
Expect the Caps to rely heavily on their known entities tonight, the Dubois and Dowd lines. And if the other two lines are able to string together some good shifts, they could end up seeing more ice time as a result, against a Dallas squad that is suiting up for its third game in four nights tonight.
“We just need strong, reliable minutes from those two lines. I know it's a little bit of a different flavor with, with Mikey, O and Leno, which I'll tend to deploy in offensive zone situations, try to get them in some advantageous situations offensively to utilize their skill sets.
“But from Lap’s line and from Mikey, for that matter, because I can promise you this, [Dallas is] probably going to look for some matchups to try to get [Mikko] Rantanen and those guys against Mikey, and they're going to look at the lineup and go, ‘Okay, [Ovechkin], Leonard, let's go after that line defensively.’ And so they're going to have to be able to hold their own. It doesn't mean they're going to win every shift, but they're going to have to be able to try to get out of those situations even, and control some shifts in the offensive zone when they're out against [Jason] Robertson or Rantanen or Wyatt Johnston. We just need a strong, 200 foot, well rounded, reliable game from our whole group. And those two lines are no different.”
In The Nets – Logan Thompson returns to the crease for the Caps tonight, and he is expected to take the crease for the 50th time tonight as a member of the Capitals. With a 36-7-6 record with Washington, Thompson has already secured the highest win total of any goaltender in their first 50 games with the Caps, surpassing Ilya Samsonov (32-10-4).
Thompson makes his seventh start of the season tonight; he has allowed two or fewer goals against in each of his first six starting assignments. Thompson is 5-1-0 with a 1.50 GAA and a .938 save pct. on the season. Lifetime against Dallas, he is 1-1-1 with a 2.00 GAA and a .929 save pct. in three appearances, all starts.
Jake Oettinger will be in goal for Dallas. With four straight seasons of 30-plus wins to his credit, Oettinger has racked up 153 career wins before his 27th birthday.
Lifetime against Washington, Oettinger is 5-0-0 with a shutout, a 1.49 GAA and a .952 save pct. in six appearances (five starts).
All Lined Up – Here’s how the Capitals and the Stars might look on Tuesday night in Dallas:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
21-Protas, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
8-Ovechkin, 24-McMichael, 9-Leonard
72-Beauvillier 29-Lapierre, 53-Frank
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 34-Sourdif
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
6-Chychrun, 3-Roy
57-van Riemsdyk, 47-Chisholm
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Healthy Extras
15-Milano
52-McIlrath
Injured/Out
17-Strome (lower body)
38-Sandin (upper body)
DALLAS
Forwards
18-Steel, 91-Seguin, 96-Rantanen
21-Robertson, 53-Johnston, 22-Bourque
49-Hyrckowian, 12-Faksa, 11-Bastian
73-Erne, 15-Blackwell
Defensemen
23-Lindell, 4-Heikanen
55-Harley, 46-Lyubushkin
6-Bichsel, 28-Petrovic
20-Capobianco
Goalies
29-Oettinger
1-DeSmith
Healthy Extras
None
Injured/Out
5-Lundqvist
10-Back
14-Benn
24-Hintz
95-Duchene
