October 7 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets at Capital One Arena
Time: 7 p.m.
TV: MSN
Radio: Caps Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (3-1-1)
Columbus Blue Jackets (3-3-1)
Washington reaches the end of its six-game preseason slate on Saturday night at Capital One Arena when it hosts the Columbus Blue Jackets in the back half of a home-and-home set of exhibitions. The Caps took the opener in Ohio’s capital city on Thursday night, 4-2.
Both the Caps and Jackets dressed relatively youthful lineups in the Thursday game in Columbus, and both sides are likely to treat Saturday’s preseason finale as a dress rehearsal for the start of the regular season in the week ahead. The Caps don’t open until next Friday against Pittsburgh, while Columbus opens at home against Philadelphia on Thursday.
On Friday afternoon, the Caps trimmed their roster ahead of the Monday deadline for submission of opening night rosters. Washington placed forwards Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Alex Limoges, Mike Sgarbossa and Joe Snively, defenseman Dylan McIlrath and goaltender Hunter Shepard on waivers. Players placed on waivers on Friday can be claimed by other NHL teams up until 2 p.m. on Saturday.
The Caps also loaned forwards Ethen Frank, Hendrix Lapierre and Riley Sutter and defensemen Vincent Iorio and Chase Priskie to AHL Hershey on Friday.
Frank, Sutter and Priskie were waived earlier in the week. All three cleared, and then were briefly brought back to Washington, and all three skated in Thursday’s game in Columbus. Sutter had a goal and an assist in that game, and his shorthanded goal late in the third period stood up as the game-winner.
In the aftermath of the Friday moves, the Capitals have 27 players on their training camp roster – three goaltenders, nine defensemen and 15 forwards. Those totals include injured defenseman Joel Edmundson (fractured hand) and injured winger Max Pacioretty (torn Achilles’ tendon), as well as goaltender Mitchell Gibson, who was summoned from AHL Hershey on Friday.
A first-year pro in 2023-24, Gibson is likely to return to Hershey after the weekend.
Washington is virtually certain to place Pacioretty on long term injured reserve, and it could also do the same with Edmundson, though the blueliner’s timetable to return makes it more likely that he will be placed on “regular” injured reserve. That would leave two more cuts for the Caps to make, and Washington still has a number of waiver-exempt players on its camp roster, including forwards Connor McMichael, Ivan Miroshnichenko and Aliaksei Protas and defenseman Hardy Haman Aktell. It’s conceivable that the Caps could get down to their opening night roster without placing any more players on waivers.
Although the 19-year-old Miroshnichenko would seem to be the likeliest candidate to be Hershey-bound, he has made a good impression in his first NHL training camp, even though he got into just two preseason games.
Miroshnichenko had a pair of assists in his first preseason outing, and he acquitted himself well on Thursday night in Columbus, too, drawing some postgame praise from Caps coach Spencer Carbery.
“There are some areas of his game that he is going to have to work on details wise,” says Carbery of Miroshnichenko. “But when he gets the puck across the red line, look out. Something positive is usually happening, and even in the offensive zone for that matter. He is just a hair off on a lot of quality, quality chances, whether it’s getting a shot off or a little puck bobble. I constantly find myself going, ‘Whoa,’ when he has the puck or he is in the offensive zone, or he is attacking off the rush.”
It’s worth mentioning at this stage of the hockey calendar that the opening night roster is just that, a snapshot of a team’s roster on a given day, just prior to the start of the season. Rosters are fluid entities that change and evolve over the course of an 82-game, six-month regular season, and we’ve seen players who were either scratched or not even on the roster on opening night have significant impacts on their team in that given season.
Conversely, players who do open the season on the roster are sometimes sent to the minors before they’re even able to get into a game. Landing a berth on an opening night NHL roster is a nice achievement, but every player will tell you it’s a more about remaining on the roster than merely making the roster.
Also, while collecting the best possible group of players to start the season is important, so too is protecting assets and preserving organizational depth. At this time last year, the Caps lost a pair of drafted forwards – Axel Jonsson-Fjallby to WInnipeg and Brett Leason to Anaheim – they had placed on waivers with the intention of sending them to AHL Hershey.
Losing a pair of depth forwards on waivers stung, but the Caps responded by signing Sonny Milano and claiming Aube-Kubel off waivers from Toronto shortly after the start of the season. And despite not having Jonsson-Fjallby and Leason, Hershey went on to win the Calder Cup last season.
Columbus also made a significant number of roster cuts on Friday. Adam Fantilli, the third overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, appears to have made the Jackets’ opening night roster. Fantilli did not play on Thursday against Washington, but if – as expected – both teams are using Saturday’s exhibition finale as a dress rehearsal for the season opener, we could get our first NHL look at the 18-year-old who excelled as a freshman (30 goals, 35 assists in 36 games) at U. of Michigan last season.
