Sunny Day Dream Away – After a day off in warm and sunny Salt Lake City on Wednesday, the Caps are back on the ice and back in action on Thursday night in Utah. Tonight at Delta Center, the Caps play the middle match of their three-game western road trip against the Utah Mammoth.
Center David Kampf – acquired from Vancouver on March 6 – took some personal leave to return to British Columbia to join his wife for the birth of their child, and he rejoined the team on Wednesday in Utah and was back on the ice with his new teammates this morning. Winger Ethen Frank, who missed Tuesday’s trip opener in St. Louis with a lower body injury sustained in Sunday’s overtime loss to Colorado in DC, was back on the ice this morning as well, albeit in a light blue non-contact sweater.
“We’ll see,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery, queried as to Kampf’s status. “We’ll see about tonight, but good to have him back. He was skating a little bit when he was out in Vancouver after the birth of his child.
“So, coming to rejoin the group, whether it’s tonight or [Saturday] in Vegas, we’ll see. But we’re just trying to get him up to speed as quickly as we can.”
Washington might be running back the same lineup from Tuesday’s trip opener in St. Louis, but when Carbery addressed the media after today’s skate, the lineup picture still wasn’t quite clear.
“We’re working through a couple of things, so it may alter a little bit,” says Carbery. “So I won’t commit to anything.”
Coming off a 3-0 shutout loss to the Blues in the trip opener, the players finally had a day off accompanied by some warm weather, a real treat they haven’t seen for a few months now on the road.
“It was awesome,” declares Caps defenseman Jakob Chychrun. “I think all the guys got a little too much sun yesterday, as you can tell by the sunburns. But I loved it. I rented a scooter and I bombed around the town for over an hour, just cruising, shirt off and getting some sun. So, I enjoyed it. I think all the guys enjoyed it. And, yeah, hopefully we can gain some energy from that day yesterday.”
“We’ve been going strong here for a while, where we get the off day, but it’s a travel day where we’ve got to fly out west,” says Carbery. “I want to say it was either eight or nine days in a row where we we’re either practicing or playing a game or getting on an airplane.
“So, a nice day to be able to get away from the rink, get away from one another, reset mentally. When you get weather like it was yesterday, I think it just helps the guys mentally to just refocus and get ready for today.”
You Again – The Caps and Mammoth met earlier this month in Washington with the Mammoth earning a 3-2 victory. Utah grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first on a pair of goals near the middle of the first period. The Caps twice rallied back to within a goal, getting a pair of power-play strikes from P-L Dubois and Ryan Leonard, respectively.
Washington was 2-for-2 on the power play in that game; the Caps are 3-3-0 in games in which they’ve scored multiple power play goals this season.
“I think that the speed and their small area skills, like they made a lot of plays in tight areas,” says Carbery of his team’s previous game with the Mammoth, just over three weeks ago. And it wasn't just the [Clayton] Kellers and the [Nick] Schmaltzes of the world. This was line one through four really doing a nice job of being able to get pucks off the yellow to dangerous areas of the ice.
“So, how do we counter punch that? We're going to have to find a way to keep pucks out of there. They're going to be able to make some plays. We’ve got to close quicker, we’ve got to do a job with our sticks, but also we have to be able to counter punch, and we can't be defending all night. So, that means us being able to get into the offensive zone and stay there. Have a few shifts where we're able to recover a few pucks off of sprays, or some second and third looks, so that it's not just constantly they have the puck and they're attacking us and making slip plays through us. We are controlling at least half the play, and hopefully more than that.”
Excluding empty-net goals scored by Washington, the Caps have been limited to two or fewer goals for in 10 of their previous 11 games. They know they’ve got to find a way to generate offense and score goals more consistently.
“Definitely what we need to accomplish, obviously, is finding ways to score a few more goals,” says Chychrun. “I think it starts with just making it hard on the goalie, making sure we’ve always got somebody in his way, making it hard on him. And just delivering pucks in there and trying to create some chaos in front of the net, and just get him swimming a little bit, and see what we can do to put a couple back there.
“But I think the biggest thing is just getting back to just having a guy planted there and make it hard on him.”
In The Nets – Logan Thompson is back between the pipes tonight for Washington, starting for the sixth straight game, the 10th in the last 11 and the 13th time in the Caps’ last 15 contests. Tonight’s assignment is his 51st start of the season; only Utah’s Karel Vejmelka (55) and Nashville’s Juuse Saros (53) have more.
Beginning with a Feb. 5 game against Nashville – his first game after coming off injured reserve and the team’s final game ahead of the NHL’s Olympic pause – Thompson is 6-4-2 with a 2.09 GAA and a .924 save pct. His GAA ranks fourth and his save pct. ranks fifth among all NHL goaltenders with at least eight starts across that span. The Caps have scored 2.59 goals per game in support of Thompson over those last dozen starts, ranking 25th among the 33 goalies with at least eight starts.
Lifetime against Utah/Arizona, Thompson is 2-4-1 in seven appearances – all starts – with a 2.52 GAA and an .882 save pct.
For Utah, ex-Caps netminder Vitek Vanecek is the likely starter. Vanecek debuted with Washington in 2020-21 and he earned his 100th career win earlier this month with a 16-save shutout over the Flyers in Philadelphia on March 5.
Lifetime against the Capitals, Vanecek is 1-2-0 in five appearances – three starts – with a 3.83 and an .875 save pct.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Caps and the Blues might look on Thursday night in Salt Lake City:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 72-Beauvillier
21-Protas, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
24-McMichael, 34-Sourdif, 9-Leonard
22-Duhaime, 29-Lapierre, 63-Miroshnichenko
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 38-Sandin
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
44-Hutson, 3-Roy
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Healthy Extras
27-Liljegren
47-Chisholm
52-McIlrath
Injured/Out
53-Frank (lower body)
64-Kampf (personal)
UTAH
Forwards
8-Keller, 9-Schmaltz, 67-Crouse
19-But, 92-Cooley, 11-Guenther
77-Peterka, 22-McBain, 53-Carcone
15-Kerfoot, 82-Stenlund, 13-Tanev
Defensemen
98-Sergachev, 52-Weegar
88-Schmidt, 6-Marino
28-Cole, 50-Durzi
Goalies
41-Vanecek
70-Vejmelka
Healthy Extras
38-O’Brien
56-Yamamoto
57-DeSimone
Injured/Out
27-Hayton (upper body)
