Caps Reconvene After Four Months Apart

Typically, when the Capitals are making use of the ice sheets at MedStar Capitals IcePlex in mid-July, it's for the team's annual summer development camp. But there's nothing typical about the times we find ourselves in now.

The Caps' varsity squad hit the ice today at MCI, the entire group reconvening here for the first time in over four months, since March 11 when it practiced in preparation for a scheduled home game against the Detroit Red Wings the following night. But hours before puck drop for that game, the NHL announced it was pausing all league activities and heading into a period of quarantine as the novel coronavirus pandemic invaded North America.

That NHL "pause" for quarantine - now known as "Phase 1" - lasted into the early days of June. That's when Phase 2 kicked in, with players returning to their NHL cities for on- and off-ice workouts on a voluntary basis. Today marks the start of Phase 3, an official training camp to prepare the Caps and 23 other NHL clubs are back to work in preparation not for an upcoming regular season, but for a two-month tournament that will lead to the awarding of the Stanley Cup sometime this fall.

Unlike annual fall training camps, this one doesn't lead into a regular season. The first order of business for the NHL is to put a coda on the 2019-20 campaign, and the Stanley Cup playoffs - also known as Phase 4 - are needed to check that box. Phase 3 is basically a two-week tightrope in which players from two dozen different teams will practice and train with teams at their local facilities, all while attempting to remain healthy and free of COVID infections between now and July 26, when they depart for one of the NHL's two "bubble" cities, Edmonton and Toronto.

The Caps will be Toronto-bound in just under two weeks. In the meantime, the team's "return to play" roster of 34 players (four goaltenders, 10 defensemen and 20 forwards) will be working on- and off-ice in two daily groups between now and then, trying to shake off months of rust while ramping up its collective game to make it playoff ready. There will be a couple scrimmages here in Arlington, and an exhibition game in Toronto, and those will comprise the club's game preparation for its first round-robin contest on Aug. 3.

Hitting the ice at a high gear will be of paramount importance when the postseason tournament gets underway next month.

"I think our staff and our organization over the years has proved that we have a winning mentality, we want to do the little things," says Caps right wing Tom Wilson. "There is not going to be anything that we haven't thought of that might give us an advantage. We're going to follow the game plan. The coaches are going to be extremely prepared. Even day one, it felt good, it felt like a great practice in getting the touches out there.

"Moving forward, I guess everyone is going to have to be on the same page and rally together and try to execute the game plan. The details and attention to details off the bat are going to be extremely important because they are going to be very high-stake games."

For most players, this training camp will be unlike any they've attended previously. No one is playing for jobs or roster spots, no one is getting cut or sent to the minors, and exhibition games won't be populated with teenagers and recent draft picks who are headed back to junior hockey.

"I think the biggest difference probably," says Caps center Nicklas Backstrom, "is that no one has been skating -- just a couple of guys - before starting this camp. Usually you're skating for a month, and then comes training camp. So it's a whole different scenario. I think the coaches are going to be smarter about easing us into it instead of just going skating. That's the first thing. I think that's probably the biggest thing, make sure we don't get hurt to start, and then managing ourselves. Continue just building ourselves up before going to Toronto."

"It'll be very different," says Wilson. "There's not going to be an adjustment period. It is different because it's going to be a condensed camp, and it's going to be a condensed offseason per se, and then you're going to be playing for extremely higher stakes right out of the gate.

"Usually you have a lot more time to get ready. You have a lot more time for error; and then you're still only in the preseason or the first couple games of the year. It's going to be different, and it's a crossroad that - as the athletes - we are going to have to make sure that we face it head on, and we're going to have to understand the situation that we're in.

If this camp is different for the players, it's also different for Caps coach Todd Reirden and his staff. Monday marked the first day that Reirden was even able to have any contact with his players.

Rather than starting off camp with his preferred line combinations and defensive pairings, Reirden opted to group the players according to how much skating they've done. Monday's first group consisted of the players who have been frequent Phase 2 participants, while the second group consisted of the more recent arrivals to the area, and those that recently completed the quarantine protocol required by the NHL prior to returning to the ice.

Getting through Phase 3 with all players safe and healthy is the primary goal, and that objective plays a part in the daily planning as well.

"The two important things for me in these first few days are to make sure that obviously safety is the No. 1 concern," says Reirden, "that we're doing everything protocol-wise, getting used to the new rules that we have, making sure that we're trying to avoid any issues with COVID. And then secondary for me is the fact that we don't want to have any injuries out of these first few days. So I thought it was really important to split my guys into groups of two, where I had guys who had been on the ice a little bit more -- that had been skating a little bit longer - whereas other guys in the second group you saw had just come out of quarantine. They haven't been on the ice as much, but I could tailor the practice a little bit differently from one group to another.

"That was all by design, and the ultimate thing for us is to get to that hub city and try to avoid any possible situations with COVID and get there injury-free. That's the No. 1 thing here - especially in these first few days - is to lay that groundwork. So today, you saw the length of the skating drills. You saw [there was] not a lot of stopping and starting so we [don't] have any groin or stomach issues."

"We thought long and hard and spent a lot of time and had a lot of time to plan that first practice," says Reirden. "We weren't sure how it was going to go because of what the rules were going to be and whatnot, but we decided to go with two groups today, 14 guys in both groups with two goaltenders in addition to that. It was really based on a lot of touches, a lot of long skating. They've been in small groups [in Phase 2], so this was lengthening things out, and definitely a plan with every drill we did today to help them continue to grow and get closer to game shape."

Four months after their preparations for a regular season home game against Detroit was scotched, the Caps are back together, and this time they're preparing for something far more important. But in addition to that preparation, they've got to be diligent at keeping each other at arm's length, six feet away.

"I think this time away has definitely reinvigorated our team and they're excited for the opportunity," says Reirden, "but knowing that there is going to be some curveballs that could come our way. There is going to be some adversity, there is going to be some unpredictability, and how we deal with those challenges is really going to decide how our team does."

Notes: Three of the players on the Caps' 34-man "return to play" roster did not take part in Monday's practices. Goaltender Ilya Samsonov and defensemen Michal Kempny and Alex Alexeyev did not take the ice, and there is no word on when they might do so. The 24 "hub city" teams aren't going to be giving out any further specifics to media as far as reasons for a player's lack of participation in Phase 3. We won't learn why any individual players are not on the ice, nor will we learn how long they might be sidelined ... Ex-Caps player and assistant coach Dean Evason was elevated from interim head coach to head coach of the Minnesota Wild. Evason took over from ex-Caps bench boss Bruce Boudreau behind the Wild bench in February, and the "interim" portion of his title was removed on Monday morning.