Caps Face B's in Preseason Road Finale
With camp roster down to 27, it's time for Washington's veterans to get ready for the regular season
With their regular season opener against the New York Rangers now just a week away, the Capitals head up to Boston on Wednesday night for their final road preseason game, and the third of three straight away from the District. The Caps will conclude their 2021 preseason slate of six games on Friday when they host the Flyers.
Wednesday's game is the second between the Caps and the Bruins this preseason; the two teams opened their respective exhibition schedules in Washington late last month with the B's taking a 3-2 shootout decision.
Following a pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season that did not allow for any preseason games, the Caps have used the first four games to take long looks at the younger players in their organization. Many of Washington's vets have played only a single game of the team's four tune-up tilts to date. That's expected to change for the last two contests, which Washington coach Peter Laviolette expects to use as dress rehearsals for the regular season.
Once the exhibition season is in the books on Friday night, most Washington regulars will have played three exhibition games, with a few exceptions. The Caps preseason schedule started with two straight at home followed by three in a row on the road, concluding with the Boston game. The Caps have a heavily veteran lineup, and typically vets aren't deployed for more than a game - or two at the most - during the preseason.
"It'll be a veteran lineup in the last two games," said Laviolette on Monday before the Caps left for the game in New Jersey. "It's a chance to not play these guys in four games, it's a chance to not travel on the road to two of them. It's just the way that it worked out. Playing our first two games at home, we got our veterans into one of those games each. They'll all be in the end on [on Friday] and a good majority of them will be in Game 5 as well."
More so than in recent seasons under recent coaching regimes, the Caps took longer looks at a lot of their younger players and prospects. But the time has come now to make sure that the regulars are ready to roll when the bell rings next Wednesday.
"We've got to get going," says Laviolette. "That's just the way that we kind of designed the camp. It's got to do with our veteran players and how we wanted to design the training camp. It would be nice if they could take both the home games down and only travel once. We've got to get to our guys and get our guys on the ice in [exhibition] games five and six and get ready for game one [of the regular season]."
Tuesday was an off day for Washington, but more squad cuts were made following a pair of movements on Monday, when forward Axel Jonsson-Fjallby was claimed off waivers by the Buffalo Sabres and goaltender Pheonix Copley was placed on waivers. Copley cleared on Tuesday and was reassigned to Hershey while six more players were reassigned to the Caps' AHL affiliate.
Forwards Brian Pinho, Aliaksei Protas, Mike Sgarbossa and Mike Vecchione and defensemen Alex Alexeyev and Tobias Geisser were sent to the Bears, who opened their training camp on Monday. Pinho, Sgarbossa and Vecchione must clear waivers prior to reporting to Hershey. Those moves leave the Washington training camp roster at 27 players (16 forwards, eight defensemen and three goaltenders), including center Nicklas Backstrom (hip injury) who is highly unlikely to be ready when the season starts. Opening night rosters must be submitted to the NHL offices by 5 p.m. Eastern time on Monday.
With goaltender Ilya Samsonov listed as day-to-day because of a lower body injury sustained on Saturday in Philadelphia, Washington will bring netminders Vitek Vanecek and Zach Fucale to Boston on Wednesday. The original plan was for Vanecek and Samsonov to split the final two starts and for each to play all 60 minutes, but it remains to be seen whether Samsonov will be able to start in Friday's exhibition finale.
For the Bruins, Wednesday's game is the team's last preseason tune-up. The B's will then have the luxury of cooling their heels for more than a week before the team's opening night tilt against Dallas on Oct. 16.
Three of Boston's five exhibition matches have required overtime, including each of the last two. Most recently, the B's dropped a 2-1 decision to the Flyers in Philadelphia on Monday night.
