SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes From Caps' Morning Skate

Stormy Monday - The Caps will jet up to Newark to take on the New Jersey Devils on this Monday night, playing the middle match of three straight preseason road games. The two teams tangled here in the District last Wednesday, with the Devils prevailing 5-4 on a pair of goals in the third period.

Caps coach Peter Laviolette has lamented his team's tendency to turn the puck over in its first three games of the preseason. He'll be looking for better puck management from his players in tonight's rematch against the Devils. Aside from the turnovers, he has been mostly pleased with the adherence to the team's structure and its system in the first three preseason contests.
"It's been good," says Laviolette. "I think there has been some detail that we've missed defensively as well. And a lot of [the turnovers] happen from the offensive zone. Those seem to be the ones that are glaring going back the other way. Whether they're breakaways or 2-on-1s, there are details that need to be followed inside of that. Those details have broken down a little bit, and so we teach and go over it and get back to it. That and turnovers have probably been the two biggest things for me in camp.
"It hasn't been compete; I thought we competed hard [Saturday in Philadelphia]. I don't think it as that. I thought we played hard, we showed up. But there are things that you can do inside the game that you can do better to have a better result at the end of the night."
The Left Hand And The Right Hand - Caps defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk will be in the lineup tonight, dressing for the third time in four preseason games. One of four right-handed, NHL caliber defensemen on the Washington roster, van Riemsdyk has been playing a fair amount on the left side this fall. Once the season gets underway, we may see him skating on the left side as the Caps are seeking to replace a pair of lefties who departed over the summer in Zdeno Chara and Brenden Dillon.
Because right-handed defensemen are in shorter supply than lefties, it's typically rarer for righties to be deployed on their off side. van Riemsdyk spent the first three seasons of his NHL career in Chicago, where he was able to watch Niklas Hjalmarsson - a lefty - routinely play on his off side with aplomb, and he hopes his studies of Hjalmarsson will help him going forward.
"I've done it a little bit throughout the years, sporadically," says van Riemsdyk. "I was lucky enough to watch probably one of the best to ever do it on their off side in Niklas Hjalmarsson, when he was playing with [Duncan Keith] a lot. He was unbelievable, guys couldn't even get in the zone on him. He was really good at that, and he was always a guy I liked to watch. He was so simple, but he made every pass, he made every play, he was in the right spot.
"I was lucky enough to be able to watch him from up close, and like I said he was probably one of the best to ever play their off side like that for the main part of their career. I'm lucky enough to have seen that and I've done it a little bit, so I feel pretty comfortable over there. There are some things I even like better on the other side. In these games you sometimes get put in situations that you don't think about beforehand, and you just learn from them to give yourself better routes or options in certain situations."
For tonight's game against the Devils, van Riemsdyk is the lone right-hander of the six defensemen the Caps are bringing to Newark. Martin Fehervary and Matt Irwin are slated to play on their off sides tonight, while van Riemsdyk will be on the right side of a pairing with Alex Alexeyev.
Earlier in the preseason, van Riemsdyk spent a fair amount of the game partnered with Martin Has during the rookie's first-ever NHL preseason game. It wasn't all that long ago that van Riemsdyk himself was one of a few young defensemen on a stacked Chicago blueline, and now he's helping to nurture some young defensemen in exhibition games.
"It's funny, you still have those butterflies coming in off the summer and you've been off for a while," says van Riemsdyk. "But you look back on it and looking back on it is tough. In the moment, you wish you had been a little less nervous [as a rookie] so you could enjoy it and realize how special it is. It's easy to say after the fact, and you want to try to say that to [Has], but he did a great job. I thought he played really well. He did a lot of really good things in that games, so he was probably pretty happy; he should have been. It's a great accomplishment and one that you shouldn't take for granted."
In The Nets -Vitek Vanecek gets the net for Washington tonight in his first starting assignement of the preseason. Ilya Samsonov is currently day-to-day with a lower body injury, and the Caps placed goaltender Pheonix Copley on waivers on Monday afternoon, with the intent of sending him to AHL Hershey if he clears. So at the moment, Vanecek and Zach Fucale are the Caps' netminding tandem.
Vanecek is expected to go the distance against the Devils tonight, with Fucale backing him up.
As for the Devils, they'll dress MacKenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood for tonight's game. Blackwood is expected to play two periods in his first game action of the preseason.
All Lined Up - Here's how we believe the Caps will line up for Monday's game in Newark, and here also is the Devils' game roster for tonight's game:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
62-Hagelin, 26-Dowd, 21-Hathaway
10-Sprong, 24-McMichael, 36-Vecchione
59-Protas, 29-Lapierre, 40-Pilon
47-Malenstyn, 23-Sgarbossa, 64-Pinho
Defensemen
9-Orlov, 42-Fehervary
27-Alexeyev, 57-van Riemsdyk
46-Geisser, 52-Irwin
Goaltenders
41-Vanecek
60-Fucale
New Jersey
Forwards
10-Holtz
13-Hischier
16-Vesey
18-Dawson
20-McLeod
37-Zacha
44-Wood
55-Geertsen
59-Kuokkanen
63-Bratt
70-Boqvist
90-Tatar
Defensemen
2-White
7-Hamilton
28-Severson
33-Graves
76-Subban
83-Jaros
88-Bahl
Goaltenders
29-Blackwood
41-Wedgewood