Caps Start Season vs. Bruins
Caps kick off a busy first week of the season on Wednesday night when they host Boston
On Wednesday night at Capital One Arena, the Caps will break the seal on season number 48 of their NHL history when they host the Boston Bruins in the B's lone visit to the District this season. Wednesday's season opener kicks off a busy early stretch for the Caps, who'll plunge into the new season with a set of back-to-back games, and with three games in four nights and four games in the first six nights of the campaign.
Both the Caps and the Bruins enter Wednesday's opener missing a trio of important players. Washington started last season without center Nicklas Backstrom, and it will do so again in 2022-23. Backstrom is rehabbing from offseason hip surgery, and this fall he is joined on the shelf by wingers Carl Hagelin (hip) and Tom Wilson (knee).
The offseason additions of Connor Brown (via trade with Ottawa) and Dylan Strome (as an unrestricted free agent) plus the re-signing of veteran forward Marcus Johansson are designed to aid the Caps up front while the aforementioned trio of injured players continue their respective rehabs.
As one of the League's oldest teams, the Caps were pleased to be able to add the 25-year-old Strome without giving up any assets to do so. He had a strong season with Chicago in 2021-22, but the rebuilding Hawks elected not to tender him a qualifying offer, and he quite suddenly and unexpectedly hit the open market in July. Washington won a spirited bid for his services.
"They were one of the teams that showed the most interest on the first day of free agency," says Strome of the Caps," and it was something that I really wasn't expecting to go through, having a pretty good year last year numbers-wise and being a restricted free agent, and then finding out four or five days before that I was going to be unrestricted.
"It was something that just turned around really quick, and then Washington showed some interest and it seemed like a great fit. They have lots of guys that love to score goals and some great playmakers. I think this team is poised for a long run, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm happy to be here, and I'm excited."
The Caps also added defenseman Erik Gustafsson to fill the third-pairing slot left vacant by Justin Schultz's offseason departure, but the most notable change for the Caps is in net where they've made wholesale changes with the offseason signings of free agents Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren.
Washington tweaked its training camp routine to allow for more spirited scrimmages, giving players who weren't in the preseason lineup on given nights some opportunities to shine. The Caps entered training camp with one of the deepest rosters they've had in recent memory, but their depth took a bit of a dent on Monday when wingers Axel-Jonsson Fjallby and Brett Leason were claimed. Jonsson-Fjallby will report to Winnipeg, and Leason heads to sunny Anaheim to join the Ducks.
The Caps will start 2022-23 with a full complement of 23 rostered players, and they're carrying 14 forwards and seven defensemen to start out. There is a fair amount of flux in the forward group because of the injuries, and the Caps are going into the season with no incumbents in net for the first time in franchise history. But the blueline group is mostly unchanged, aside from the addition of Gustafsson.
"It was interesting last year," says Caps assistant coach Kevin McCarthy, "I remember going into the season and thinking about our forward group and our [defense] group, and you just kind of wonder where we're going to be at. And then all of a sudden we get decimated by injuries up front. And the one thing that I thought that really helped us was the fact that we were healthy on the back end through that time when we lost all those forwards and offensive guys. And I really thought that our [defense] as a group really came up and matured to a point where they would win us hockey games by playing good strong defense. And we were fortunate in the fact that we don't we didn't lose anybody on the back end for any significant length of time last year, which was huge.
"Going into this year, obviously we lose Schultzy, but what it does is it allows Trevor [van Riemsdyk] to go back on the right side which is his natural side. And I think that he did a phenomenal job playing on the left side for a guy not really playing that much on that side, and that's hard to do. The fact that he is going to be back on his natural side is going to be a big plus for him and for us."
Washington's defense has been consistent through the two seasons since Laviolette and McCarthy arrived on the scene, but with the upgrades in net - particularly in terms of experience - the Caps are looking for even more overall improvement in their own end of the ice.
"Brian and his team upstairs I thought did a really good job of trying to set us up for a good start, bringing in Darcy Kuemper," says Laviolette. "I thought we were pretty good defensively, and I thought we were tough to play against defensively the last couple years, and the one thing that I said coming into training camp is we need to be better. I want to try to be better.
"You always want to be on the attack. I always feel like we're going to score goals. We've got offensive players and gifted players, but the difference oftentimes between winning and losing is, I feel like we're going to get those chances offensively. But how tight can we be defensively? Like, how stingy can we be? And so there's still room for improvement even off of the two years where we are okay, there's still room for improvement to be better and get better defensively."
Swift starts have been the norm for the Caps in their first two seasons with Laviolette at the helm. They rolled out to a 6-0-3 start in 2020-21 and followed with a strong 5-0-3 start last season. Missing key players and facing four games in six nights to start this season, they're aiming to get out of the blocks quickly once again, but that's every team's goal every season.
"Starts are important," acknowledges Laviolette. "Every team wants to get off to one, though. So that means that there's probably 8-10 teams that don't get off to the start that they want.
"You work hard in training camp and you try to put everything in place, and you try to get the guys up to conditioning speed, game speed. And you try to touch on everything so that when you go into a game, you feel like you've worked on it or covered it, even though it's still a building process from here. You'd like to think that you've taken training camp to get ready for game one, or to get ready for the first four games in six nights. And from there, you've got to go out and play them. But I think training camp was good, and I think our guys are ready."
Boston is expected to be missing top line winger Brad Marchand (hip), top pair defenseman Charlie McAvoy (shoulder) and blueliner Matt Grzelcyk (shoulder) when it opens the season in Washington on Wednesday. Grzelcyk appears to be on the fast track to returning; he has been practicing with the team recently, but he is not expected to suit up for the opener.
Over the summer, the Bruins underwent a change behind the bench, replacing Bruce Cassidy - who later landed the head coaching gig with the Vegas Golden Knights - with Jim Montgomery, who cut his NHL head coaching teeth with the Dallas Stars a few seasons back. The Bruins made the Stanley Cup playoffs in each of Cassidy's six seasons behind the bench, getting as far as Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in 2019 before bowing to the Blues.
Even without Marchand, the Bruins still have a formidable forward group, and David Krejci is back in Boston after a one-season to play at home in the Czech League. Aside from re-signing the 36-year-old Krejci, the Bruins' most significant offseason move was a one-for-one deal with the Devils in which veteran center Erik Haula was sent to New Jersey in exchange for forward Pavel Zacha, who was the sixth player chosen overall in the 2015 NHL Draft.
