Caps Set for Season Opener
Caps start season vs. Sabres on Thursday in first of a back-to-back set in Buffalo
Although they didn't know it at the time and it's not what the schedule intended, the Washington Capitals concluded their 2019-20 regular season in Buffalo, just over 300 days ago on March 9 of last year. When the Caps flew home from Buffalo that night, they were set to start a three-game homestand against Detroit on March 12. But the Covid-19 pandemic had other ideas, and the NHL was never able to complete the remainder of its regular season slate.
Ironically, the Caps kick off what promises to be an intriguing 2020-21 season on Thursday night in Buffalo against the Sabres, the first of a set of back-to-backs in western New York. The two contests in Buffalo start off an abbreviated 56-game slate of games against just seven different opponents in the newly and temporarily cobbled East Division; every one of those games is a four-point tilt.
Four of Washington's first six games and six of its first 15 contests will be played against the Sabres. All of the Capitals' travel will be limited to the northeast corner of the country, with the longest flight just over an hour in length.
Over the last 300-plus days, the Caps have played only eight meaningful hockey games. Along with 23 other NHL clubs, the Caps reconvened for a midsummer Stanley Cup playoff tournament in the bubble cities of Edmonton and Toronto. But the Caps' postseason foray was short-lived; they were in the bubble for less than a month, playing eight games before heading home after being ousted at the hands of the New York Islanders. Washington won only two (2-5-1) of its eight games last August, scoring a paltry total of 13 goals before heading home for an offseason of undetermined length.
The playoff disappointment in the Toronto bubble followed a lackluster second half of the season, leading to a number of personnel changes both behind the bench and on the ice, and now the new look Capitals are set to test their mettle against a formidable group of teams in the East Division.
Peter Laviolette | January 12
Peter Laviolette became the 19th head coach in Caps franchise history mid-September, taking over his fifth NHL team in a coaching career that began with Wheeling of the ECHL in 1997. Laviolette has a track record of early success at every stop he has made in the NHL, and he favors a high tempo style with the defensemen involved in the attack. During his six seasons in Nashville, three different Predators defensemen combined for a total of five top-five finishes in balloting for the Norris Trophy, and Roman Josi won the Norris this past season, edging out the Caps' John Carlson.
Washington added a handful of new faces to its blueline corps over the offseason, bringing in free agents Justin Schultz, Zdeno Chara, Trevor van Riemsdyk and Paul LaDue, who was loaned to AHL Hershey on Tuesday. The Caps also signed Brenden Dillon to a contract extension after obtaining him in a trade with San Jose some 11 months ago. The remade defense will play in front of the youthful and inexperienced but promising goaltending tandem of Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek.
As has been the case for the last decade and a half, Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom lead the Washington offense. Including third line center Lars Eller, the Caps still have the same top seven forwards that helped them attain the first Stanley Cup championship in franchise history two and a half years ago.
Washington averaged 3.42 goals per game last season, second in the league to Tampa Bay (3.47). Among the Caps' 13 rostered forwards at season's outset, the only new faces are those of Daniel Sprong and Conor Sheary. Washington acquired Sprong in deadline deal with Anaheim last February, and it inked Sheary to a free agent deal just before the turn of the calendar.
Laviolette was relieved of his duties in Nashville just over a year ago, accounting for the longest gap between games of his coaching career, a fact aided by the pandemic. But he is raring to go and excited for the task at hand.
"Well, obviously it's a little bit different but I'm still excited about it," he says. "I mean, we're all still playing a game. At the end of the day, we all started playing at three years old or four years old or five years old, and that's everybody. And here we are, we're getting to open up the NHL season in 2021. There's going to be a Stanley Cup winner at the end of the year, and you've got to fight hard all year for it.
"I think everybody's really excited to get going. It's been a long time, it's been an odd year; 2020 has been such an odd year for so many different reasons - and hockey isn't exempt from that - but just the craziness of it. And so here we are, this is the way we start, this is when we're starting, and I think you'll find most everybody is really excited just to get going."
For the first time in its franchise history, Washington is opening the season with four straight road games. Given the number of new faces and the way of the world given the Covid landscape, the early road jaunt of six days in duration figures to be a positive for a team with a new coach and some new faces dotting the lineup.
"It's going to be a wild year regardless of whether we are home or away or what have you," says Carlson. "It seems like it's jam-packed and different from any other year that you've ever dealt with. In that sense, we will need almost playoff mentalities in terms of making a lot of adjustments throughout, which is a whole another story. But just getting mentally prepared to do what we need to do and put ourselves in the best position for success, I think definitely being on the road at the start is really a good thing for us at this point. We will have a couple days as a team together, and in different ways than we would be able to do things here [in D.C.]."
Buffalo also endured some organizational changes over the offseason. Ralph Krueger will return for his second season as the Sabres' head coach, but general manager Jason Botterill was cut loose in favor of Kevyn Adams, who was a Sabres assistant coach for two seasons from 2011-13. Adams was born in D.C. the day before the Capitals played the first game of their franchise history on Oct. 9, 1974. Along with ex-Caps center Jeff Halpern and former Habs defenseman Bill Nyrop, Adams is one of only three players in NHL history who was born in the nation's capital.
Adams took over the reins in June, and three months later he reeled in the off-season's biggest free agent, signing former Hart Trophy-winning left wing Taylor Hall to a one-year deal worth $8 million. Adams also engineered a trade to land veteran center Eric Staal from Minnesota; Staal and Adams were teammates on the 2005-06 Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes, who were coached by Laviolette.
The Sabres also brought in ex-Caps center Cody Eakin to man the middle of their third line, as well as veteran winger Tobias Rieder, who has been skating on Eakins' left side through training camp.
With Hall and Staal joining the likes of Jack Eichel, Jeff Skinner, Victor Olofsson and Sam Reinhart, Buffalo's top six forward group is deeper and more dangerous, which should enable the team to improve on its offensive output from last season when it ranked 21st in the circuit in scoring.
Buffalo is taking aim on its first playoff berth since 2011, near the end of Lindy Ruff's lengthy tenure behind the Sabres bench. Krueger is Buffalo's sixth different bench boss during that nine-year drought; the list includes Ruff, who missed the postseason in his final full season with the Sabres.
