Caps Clash with Columbus
Caps head into stretch drive with Tuesday night tilt vs. Jackets and some lineup question marks
Fresh from a five-day break from the rigors of the rink, the Caps are back in action Tuesday night when they host the Columbus Blue Jackets at Capital One Arena, the third of four meetings between the two Metropolitan Division rivals this season.
With the All-Star break now in the rear view, the Caps embark upon the stretch drive of the 2021-22 regular season. The original schedule had the entire NHL dark for an Olympic break for all of this week and next week, but a League-wide midseason surge in COVID-19 cases forced postponement of roughly 100 games around the circuit and canceled the NHL's participation in the Beijing Olympics.
Instead of a two-week break, the Caps and their brethren around the League will use these two weeks to accommodate the rescheduling of games postponed earlier in the campaign. That means the stretch drive starts now, and the games take on a bit of a different tenor, with a little more desperation than those October and November tilts had.
"Yeah, I think so," says Caps defenseman John Carlson, "especially in our division where everything is pretty tight, and we've got to make up some ground. From our standpoint, that's definitely how we feel, and I think it just goes with the natural progression of the season.
"Obviously every game means the exact same. But the closer and closer they get [to the end of the season], the more informed any team or player wants to be, and that kind of follows that mantra with what coaches are saying and teammates are saying to each other."
"I think so, I think it does," echoes Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "At the beginning of the year, it's more about short-term goals and trying to set some things inside the room to accomplish. But every team starts the season with the same objective, and they have their eye on one prize. And then by this time, for some it will be a reality and for some it won't be a reality.
"And so for me, you've taken out more than half the games now and you've really condensed that look and that picture. Now you start looking at where you are and how you're playing, and your health and how many games are left in the season, where you sit in the standings and all of that. So it definitely shortens things up quite a bit."
Speaking of the Caps' health, they appear to be heading in the wrong direction in that regard. Defenseman Michal Kempny was back on the ice on Monday after coming off the COVID-19 protocol, but Caps captain Alex Ovechkin remains in protocol, though he could play on Tuesday if he tests negative in the morning and feels up to the task, according to Laviolette.
Ovechkin won't be going to Montreal for the Caps' Thursday date with the Canadiens there. Players aren't permitted to cross the Canadian border soon after coming off protocol, which also prevented Nic Dowd and Trevor van Riemsdyk from accompanying the team to Winnipeg two nights after they played in Chicago in mid-December.
Because of the optional nature of Monday's practice, we don't yet know whether players were traveling back to the District today, taking another day off, or whether they weren't able to test their way into the building. Tuesday's morning skate should provide more clarity in that regard. We do know that Vitek Vanecek, who suffered an upper body injury last Tuesday in Pittsburgh, sat out Monday's session because of that injury. Vanecek was in the building to try to work out on Monday, injury permitting.
With Vanecek unavailable and goaltender Ilya Samsonov among the missing on Monday, the Caps recalled goaltender Pheonix Copley from AHL Hershey and also deployed assistant coach Brett Leonhardt as a second goaltender for the practice session.
Playing his first NHL game in nearly three years, Copley was solid in relief of Samsonov for Washington in a 5-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers last Wednesday. Returned to Hershey the following day, he was in net for a 4-1 Bears victory in Cleveland on Saturday, his fourth straight victory at the AHL level.
Copley has yielded two or fewer goals against in five straight games and in 10 of his last 13 at Hershey. If he gets the starting assignment against the Blue Jackets on Tuesday, it would be his first NHL start since April 6, 2019 when he absorbed a 3-0 setback against the Islanders here in the '18-19 regular season finale.
"Obviously with a guy injured like [Vanecek] is, there's always a chance," says Copley of his Monday recall. "I just had that in the back of my mind that there was a possibility I'd be coming back up, and sure enough I got the call."
The Jackets currently sit in fifth place in the Metropolitan Division standings, but they're 14 points south of Boston for the second wild card playoff berth in the Eastern Conference standings. Columbus rolled out to a promising 12-6-0 start to the season, but it has fallen upon hard times since. The Blue Jackets are 8-16-1 in their last 25 games.
The Caps have taken each of the first two meetings between the two Metro rivals this season, winning 4-3 on Nov. 12 in Columbus and 3-1 here in the District on Dec. 4.
