Caps Host Ottawa
Caps open three-game homestand on Saturday night vs. Senators
The Capitals open up a three-game homestand on Saturday night against the Ottawa Senators. Saturday's game is the second meeting between the two clubs this season; Washington claimed a 7-5 victory over the Sens in Ottawa back on Oct. 25.
For the Capitals, Saturday's game against the Sens kicks off the second half of their 2021-22 regular season slate. The Caps closed out the first half of the season in Boston on Thursday, taking a 4-3 loss on Charlie McAvoy's power-play goal with 45 seconds remaining in regulation.
On Friday at noon, the Caps took to the ice for an optional practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. Conor Sheary, who went into COVID-19 protocol just before last Saturday's matinee win over the Islanders in New York, returned to the ice and practiced with his teammates after missing the last four games.
Early in the day, there was no firm indication of whether Sheary would be cleared to play on Saturday against the Sens.
"He's obviously cleared from protocol and on the ice today, so that's a good thing," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of Sheary. "He's still out there, so I haven't seen him to see where he's at or how he was feeling. That would be great if he was."
Peter Laviolette | January 21
Later on Friday afternoon, the Caps made a roster move that could portend an imminent Sheary return, sending forward Axel Jonsson-Fjallby to AHL Hershey. Jonsson-Fjallby logged 8:04 on Thursday night in Boston - all of it at even strength - in his ninth NHL game of the season.
Had he appeared in one more game, Jonsson-Fjallby would have had to clear waivers to be returned to the AHL. When Washington tried to send him back to Hershey late in training camp in October, the Buffalo Sabres claimed him. The Caps were able to get him back with a claim of their own when the Sabres tried to send him to AHL Rochester a week later.
In Thursday's game, Jonsson-Fjallby skated the right side of a line with Connor McMichael and Lars Eller. Sheary has played with both players before and would be a logical fit on that line, but so would Daniel Sprong if Sheary isn't yet ready to roll. Sprong was a healthy extra on Thursday in Boston.
Washington recorded a single-game season low of 17 shots on net in Thursday's loss to the Bruins, and the Caps endured a shotless stretch of more than a dozen minutes in duration over the middle of the second period, a span that included a pair of power plays.
"At 5-on-5 we won the game [Thursday] night," says Laviolette. "We scored three, they scored two. And the [scoring] chances, we had them slightly in our favor. We gave up some chances on the penalty kill and they generated some power play chances, and they were able to score on the power play.
"I think the scoring has been down a little bit. We went back and looked at a segment when things were going really well, and it was 30 shots for and 27 and a half against, and that's where we've been the last 10 games. And so they haven't dropped. Your shooting percentage isn't always as high as you want it to be, it doesn't mean that you're not creating.
"But [Thursday] night it was tougher to create, no question. They play defense well, they had some attitude, they had a tough game the game before [in a 7-1 loss to Carolina at home] and probably a lot of meetings. They came out and played a tough defensive game, but we were still able to score three goals. If you score three, you hope you win. And we didn't."
Washington fashioned nearly identical records at home (11-5-5) and on the road (11-5-4) in the first half of this season, and it has opened calendar 2022 similarly, going 1-2-1 at home and 1-2-1 on the road. The Caps did win their most recent home game, coming from behind to earn a 4-3 overtime victory over Winnipeg on Tuesday.
For Ottawa, Saturday's game is the middle match of a three-game road trip that started with a 6-4 loss to the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Thursday. The Pens roared out to a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes of play and were up 5-1 after 40 minutes on Thursday, but the Sens roared back with three in just over six minutes in the third, pulling to within one.
That mirrors the Caps' previous experience with the Senators in Ottawa this season. In that Oct. 25 contest, Washington took a 4-1 lead into the second period. The Caps prevailed in the end, but the upstart Sens scored three goals in less than six minutes in the middle frame to tie it up at one point.
Ottawa has played only one home game in the last six weeks, and that was this past Tuesday when it dropped a 3-1 decision to Buffalo. The Sens have played a total of only five games in the last five weeks, going 2-3-0. Starting with Saturday's game in D.C., the Sens will play 49 games in 98 nights to close out the season on April 29.
