Caps Close Out Exhibition Slate vs. Isles

On the 42nd anniversary of its first-ever regular season game in the NHL, Washington concludes its seven-game 2016 preseason schedule on Sunday with a 5 p.m. game against the New York Islanders at Verizon Center.

The Caps carry a 3-1-2 preseason mark into their final preseason tune-up. For the most part, they'll be icing a lineup that should bear quite a bit of resemblance to Thursday night's lineup when the Capitals open their 2016-17 campaign against the Penguins in Pittsburgh.

On Friday night in Raleigh, the Caps rallied from a two-goal deficit midway through the third period to force overtime and a shootout. Washington eventually dropped a 3-2 decision to the Hurricanes, but given the makeup of the Capitals' lineup in that contest, coach Barry Trotz was satisfied with the outcome.

"I think it was a good game for us to evaluate on. We had a lot of guys play pretty well. We didn't have a lot of offense in our lineup; we had seven or eight guys who were missing. But I thought the game was fast. They had a good lineup and they play tremendously fast. I thought it was really good for us to evaluate and right now we're going to talk about if we saw any separation. A bunch of guys did a really good job."

The Capitals waived a quartet of veteran forwards on Saturday, placing Paul Carey, Stanislav Galiev, Brad Malone and Christian Thomas on waivers for the purpose of reassigning them to AHL Hershey. All four cleared waivers and are expected to report to Hershey. Early on Sunday, the Caps announced defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler was released from the team's camp roster and he will play for the Zurich Lions in the Swiss National A League this season.

With those roster trims, Washington's roster now stands at 24 players (14 forwards, eight defensemen and two goaltenders. The Caps are expected to trim two more players - almost certainly one forward and one defenseman - between now and the league's 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline for submitting official opening night rosters.

For much of the summer, there had been talk amongst the Caps' brass and coaching staff that the club would carry 14 forwards, which is one more than Trotz's teams usually carry. But the Caps appear to have had a change of plan in that regard and are likely to start the season with 13 forwards. They'll give themselves a bit of salary cap breathing room by doing so.

Washington faced the Islanders in Bridgeport last Saturday night, skating off with a 2-1 victory. Caps goaltender Braden Holtby started and went the distance in that game, his first NHL action of the preseason after sitting idle for most of the month of September. As Team Canada's No. 3 netminder for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, Holtby didn't see any game action and had fewer practice reps than Carey Price and Corey Crawford, the two goaltenders ahead of him on the depth chart.

Holtby started and played half of Washington's game against St. Louis last Monday, and he started and went the distance in Friday's shootout loss to the Hurricanes in Carolina. He has a 1.53 GAA and a .943 save pct. over that small and flawed sample size of preseason hockey. While those numbers are impressive, Holtby believes he's still working toward his optimal in-season level.

Holtby is expected to start and go the distance today for Washington against the Islanders.

"Pretty good," he responds, when asked how he feels at this juncture, compared to previous autumns. "There are still some times in the game where I'm a little bit sloppy. But the reps are getting more and more and making it easier and easier. So I have one more game to clean it all up and make sure I'm ready for game one."

The guys in front of Holtby have more than held up their end, too, limiting shots and scoring chances in most Washington games this fall, regardless of who has been in the lineup. As a result, the Caps have allowed two or fewer goals against in five of their six exhibition games.

"We have really good depth with guys who can step into an NHL lineup," says Holtby. "That's going to be a tough decision for the coaches to see who is going to be here, because a lot of them are playing very well. Against everyone, they're making a big impact. It's been good to see and hopefully we can continue that going forward."

Here's how we expect the Capitals to look when they take the ice for their final preseason game today:

Forwards

8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 77-Oshie

65-Burakovsky, 19-Backstrom, 14-Williams

82-Sanford, 20-Eller, 90-Johansson

26-Winnik, 23-Sill, 43-Wilson

Defensemen

27-Alzner, 2-Niskanen

9-Orlov, 74-Carlson

44-Orpik, 88-Schmidt

Goaltenders

70-Holtby

31-Grubauer