Caps Head West for Weekend
Caps take to road for weekend set of back-to-backs, starting on Friday night in St. Louis vs. Blues
The Caps take to the road for the first time in calendar 2022, heading west for a set of back-to-back weekend games against the two combatants in last weekend's Winter Classic, the St. Louis Blues and the Minnesota Wild. The Caps visit the Blues on Friday night and they will head north along the Mississippi River to St. Paul, where they'll take on the Wild on Saturday.
Washington has been idle since Sunday afternoon when it staged a late comeback to claim a point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils. The Caps took Monday off before conducting a trio of practices this week at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, practices that were designed to include conditioning and systemic refreshers for a team that has been scattered by COVID-19 protocol and injuries for most of the season, and especially for the last six weeks.
With the team's last few players coming off the protocol this week, Caps coach Peter Laviolette hoped to conduct a sort of mini training camp to get the group on the same page as much as possible, in terms of conditioning and the like. For the last several weeks, the Caps have had a revolving door lineup, and only seven of its players have been healthy enough to suit up for each of the team's last 11 games, stretching back to the beginning of December.
Laviolette's plan hit a snag when both Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie came down with a non-COVID related illness and weren't able to be on the ice for the Tuesday and Wednesday sessions, and when defenseman Dmitry Orlov - one of only four players who have played in all 34 games thus far this season - suffered an upper body injury during Tuesday's session.
Despite the absence of those three and some other players for the Tuesday and Wednesday sessions, Laviolette believes his group got what it needed from the practices earlier in the week.
"We did in the sense that we pushed the pace, we competed, we battled, and we worked on some systems stuff," says Laviolette. "I wish T.J. and Nick were out here, just because of the seasons that they've had, and it would have been good for them. But yeah, it was good to get some work in."
On the positive side of the coin, Backstrom, Orlov and Oshie were all on the ice for Thursday's quick practice tune-up prior to the team's departure for St. Louis. Whether Backstrom and/or Oshie are cleared to play this weekend remains to be seen, however.
"I'm not sure about that one," says Laviolette, when asked specifically about Backstrom and Oshie. "We're still working through that. We'll go in and see what's up. They've missed an awful lot of time here, and so this is day one on the ice. We've got back-to-back games here, and so we'll see what we're going to do and how we're going to approach this."
Backstrom missed the first 28 games of the season while rehabbing a hip ailment. After playing in just one game, he landed on the protocol list. After a two-week absence, he returned and played in two games before going down again with the flu.
"It's a little frustrating, but at the same time there is nothing I can do about it," says Backstrom. "Tough to get flu right after COVID, as I've heard from other people."
Backstrom returned to the ice today for the first time since Saturday.
"Just a little fatigued, I guess," he says. "That's normal after lying in bed for four or five days."
Defenseman Nick Jensen and winger Daniel Sprong both returned to action on Sunday against New Jersey after coming off the protocol list the day before. Both were able to keep somewhat active while they were out, and both managed their returns without any serious issues.
"As far as the game, I was just focused on going really short [shifts] and hard, and making sure I wasn't getting caught out there too long," says Jensen. "I think they managed my minutes a little bit; I played a decent amount.
"I have a treadmill at home, and I was doing some conditioning on there, and they gave me some equipment here that I was doing some workouts with at home. It's not like I couldn't do anything. I had some crappy nights of sleep when I was sick, so I was just a little tired throughout the day, but overall it wasn't bad, just crappy sleep. Once I got through that, then I was able to work out."
Sprong logged 21:47 - a single-game career high - in the Caps' Dec. 19 game against Los Angeles. He went into protocol on Dec. 21 as the Caps announced the postponement of that night's game in Philadelphia, and he was idle for two weeks before returning to face the Devils on Sunday.
"I got a bike from the team and I was working out," says Sprong. "Because I had no symptoms, I was able to all those things, but it doesn't compare to a game.
"I remember when COVID started, a lot of soccer players were saying they were having a hard time breathing. I didn't really believe it until I went through it myself. Now I know it hits pretty hard, and the guys that came out at the same time as me, we all talked about it and said we were all kind of going through it. And the guys who were already out of it said the same thing after their first game. But it's been good so far, and I haven't had any issues with it."
St. Louis stands second in the NHL's Central Division, where the Blues are enmeshed in a five-team chase for the top spot. Going into Thursday night's slate of NHL activity, the Blues are a point behind frontrunning Nashville, and they are six points clear of fifth-place Winnipeg.
After taking down the Wild by a 6-4 count in the Winter Classic on Saturday, the Blues took a 5-3 defeat at the hands of the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. St. Louis has won two of three games since returning from the holiday break, and it is 7-2-1 in its last 10 games. Friday's game against Washington is the opener of a five-game homestand for the Blues.
