Back-To-Back – By this time on Thursday, the Caps and the Philadelphia Flyers will be halfway through their four-game season’s series. The two Metro Division rivals clash in a midweek set of home-and-home, back-to-back games, starting on Thursday night in Philadelphia.
The last time the Caps played in Philadelphia was April 16 of this year, the night they clinched the final Eastern Conference playoff berth with a 2-1 victory over the Flyers in the 2023-24 regular season finale for both teams.
This set of back-to-backs against Philadelphia is the first of 13 sets of games on consecutive nights for the Capitals this season. Last season, the Caps played 15 sets of back-to-backs, going 9-6-0 in the front end and 8-5-2 on the back side. All eight of their victories in the back side of back-to-backs came on the road last season, including the aforementioned April 16 victory in Philly.
Metro Station – Washington gets an early crash course in divisional opponents; the Caps have already faced the Devils twice and they’ve got the New York Rangers and the Columbus Blue Jackets coming into DC on their next extended homestand, with dates against Carolina and Pittsburgh just beyond that. Eight of the Caps’ first 13 games are against Metro opponents, so the Caps’ group of new players will get a feel for Washington’s rivalry with each of the Metro teams – except for the Islanders – in the season’s first month.
“There’s pros and cons to it,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “The pros are from a pre-scout standpoint, and playing somebody back-to-back, and then getting familiar with them, a team that’s in your division that you’re going to be fighting for points with all year, and probably going to be jockeying with. So those are pros.
“The cons in playing an opponent consistently, is sometimes it just wears on the guys a little bit. But that’s life and the schedule, to play the home-and-home, back-to-back. We know it’s a difficult opponent; we had a ton of really quality games against them – on both sides of it – that were highly, highly contested on both sides. So we don't expect anything different.”
Washington’s schedule is not only Metro-heavy early, it’s Metro-heavy late as well. The Caps will play each of their final six games of the season – and seven of their last eight – against their fellow divisional denizens.
“It helps a lot; it sets the tone for the season,” says Caps’ center P-L Dubois of the Metro-heavy schedule early in the season. “At the end of the year, it’s always really tight. It’s always one, two, three, or four points that make the difference. And there are games in October, there are games in November, there are games in the middle of the season that you don’t necessarily think of. Everybody thinks of the playoff race, but it’s an 82-game playoff race.
“So these games are really important, a back-to-back against a Metro team is four big points to go get.”
More Than This – Through four games, the Caps have leaned more heavily on their three veteran centers, Nic Dowd, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Dylan Strome. All three are averaging more than 17 minutes per night in ice time. Twenty-two-year-old Hendrix Lapierre is at the opposite end of the spectrum, averaging 9:24 per night.
After Monday’s practice, Carbery noted that he needed to do a better job of keeping Lapierre’s line more involved in the game, and with back-to-backs in the offing, this may be the time to do so.
“Part of that is one me, just the shuffle and how last game went,” says Carbery. “I have to do a better job of getting them out and giving them opportunities to get out on the ice, whether the opponent is the Jack Hughes line, or whether it’s a line that’s more your traditional third or fourth line. And to develop and create some confidence and some momentum in your season, you’ve got to get out on the ice. And so I know it’s in the back of my mind; they have to play more and they have to get some more opportunity.
“Now, with that being said, they need to be really, really reliable and be able to do the necessary things to give themselves [the ice time]. They’re not always going to have a quality shift, but you need to be able to tilt the ice at times. It can’t be lopsided 70/30 of you’re in your [defensive] zone 70% and 30% the offensive zone. That won’t work in this league. So when they do get that opportunity to try to have some of those productive shifts, yeah, they’re probably going to have a couple where they’re stuck in the [defensive] zone or hemmed a bit. But can we limit those to where now, all of a sudden, it gives us as coaches the motivation to go, ‘We’ve got to get that line out there again.’”
Beginning with the second game of the season, Andrew Mangiapane has been skating on Lapierre’s line along with Jakub Vrana. On Saturday against the Devils, Mangiapane netted his first goal of the season, converting on a breakaway opportunity. Since he gets both power play and penalty killing time, Mangiapane’s ice time ranks eighth among Washington forwards, with Lapierre 11th and Vrana 12th. And Mangiapane also gets shifts with other lines; he was skating with Strome and Aliaksei Protas when he scored his first goal as a Capital on Saturday.
“I can tell you this,” says Carbery. “We’re working with them behind the scenes. We’re trying to get some consistency and some chemistry on that line, and with the back-to-back and us playing two games in 24 hours, they’re going to get some opportunity here.”
In The Nets – The Caps’ early season rotation of its two right-handed catching netminders continues with this set of back-to-backs against the Flyers. Charlie Lindgren starts tonight in Philly, and Logan Thompson is slated for starting duty on Wednesday night in Washington.
Through the season’s first four games, the Caps’ netminding duo has excelled at making timely saves; Washington has yet to yield a goal that put it behind on the scoreboard in the final 40 minutes of a game this season.
Lifetime against the Flyers, Lindgren is 3-0-2 in five appearances – all starts – with a shutout, a 1.36 GAA and a .952 save pct.
For Philly, we are expecting to see Samuel Ersson between the pipes for Tuesday’s front end contest. Ersson is making consecutive starts for the first time this season; he had the crease in the Flyers’ most recent game, their Saturday night home opener against Vancouver. Ersson stopped 29 of 32 shots he faced in a 3-0 setback.
Thus far on the young season, Ersson is 1-1-1 with a 2.99 GAA and an .894 save pct. in three starts. Lifetime against Washington, he is 1-2-0 in three appearances – all starts – with a 2.97 GAA and an .868 save pct.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we expect the Capitals and Flyers to look when they take to the ice at Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday night:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
21-Protas, 17-Strome, 8-Ovechkin
24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
88-Mangiapane, 29-Lapierre, 13-Vrana
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 16-Raddysh
Defensemen
6-Chychrun, 74-Carlson
42-Fehervary, 52-McIlrath
38-Sandin, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
48-Thompson
Extras
15-Milano
27-Alexeyev
Out/Injured
3-Roy (lower body)
19-Backstrom (hip)
77-Oshie (back)
PHILADELPHIA
Forwards
71-Foerster, 48-Frost, 11-Konecny
74-Tippett, 25-Poehling, 39-Michkov
86-Farabee, 14-Couturier, 10-Brink
44-Deslauriers, 27-Cates, 19-Hathaway
Defensemen
8-York, 6-Sanheim
5-Zamula, 55-Ristolainen
24-Seeler, 9-Drysdale
Goaltenders
33-Ersson
82-Fedotov
Extras
17-Luchanko
36-Andrae
77-Johnson
Out/Injured
21-Laughton (personal)
94-Ellis (back)
