Lead The Way – Playing without captain Alex Ovechkin for the first time this season, the Caps take to the ice tonight against Colorado in the opener of a two-game homestand. Ovechkin is expected to miss 4-6 weeks of action with a broken left fibula.
Washington is 4-0-1 in its last five games, and it has trailed for a grand total of 7 minutes and 6 seconds over the more than 300 minutes of hockey played in those contests. With five goals in his last two games – one in each of five straight periods before he went down with the lower body injury in the sixth period – and with a League-leading total of 15 goals, Ovechkin has been a driving force in Washington’s strong start to the season. But he hasn’t been the only force.
The Caps have a better roster than they’ve had in the last three seasons (when they were a combined 4-13-0 in games Ovechkin missed) and they’re playing some of the best hockey they’ve played over that span, too. Now, it’s a matter of keeping on with what they’ve been doing, while not trying to play Superman on an individual basis.
“What I hope to see is our urgency level,” begins Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery, “our competitiveness right up there with our standard, as good as it’s been all year, so that would be number one. Number two, which I think may be a little bit more important, is our group not trying to get out of character because they feel like they need to do something exceptional to make up for the absence of our captain.
“Giving more and doing more needs to be done in the right way. And if you take that a little bit too literally and try to do things outside of the realm of our structure, that sometimes can go the other way. So we need to be careful with that, that we’re not trying to save the world and everybody’s not trying to be Alex Ovechkin and ‘I’ve got to make something happen here and I’ve got to shoot this puck in the back of the net here,’ and now it’s high and wide, and it’s a breakout [for Colorado] and now all of a sudden, Nathan MacKinnon is on a [odd man rush]. It’s just things like that we need to be mindful of.”
Given the way his team has been playing of late, Carbery is understandably reluctant to shake up his lineup too much in the absence of one player. Andrew Mangiapane will take Ovechkin’s place on the top line, but he will play the left side with Aliaksei Protas on the right. And Hendrix Lapierre, a center by trade, will step into the left wing slot vacated by Mangiapane, alongside Lars Eller and Jakub Vrana.
“Yeah, it’s a more natural decision to put [newly recalled winger Ivan Miroshnichenko] in the lineup,” admits Carbery. “Play the wing, that’s where he plays, right shot. But Lappy has been here all year long, and he’s been working and watching games from a wing perspective, knowing that this opportunity may come up, and knowing that he wanted to be able to not just relying on a center injury [to get back into the lineup] or just go into that position.
“I feel like he is a good fit. For the first game here, I’ll give him an opportunity to go into the lineup on the wing, he’ll play some power play, get him out there and see if he can be productive in that role.”
Shutdown Checklist – Six nights ago in Denver, the Capitals earned a 5-2 victory over the Avalanche at Ball Arena. As the Caps vie for a sweep of the season’s series tonight in DC, they’ll be seeking to summon some of the defensive sturdiness that helped deliver that victory.
Washington held the NHL’s leading scorer – Colorado center Nathan MacKinnon – without a shot on net in more than 22 minutes on the ice that night, the first time he has been shutout on the shot counter in 79 games, going back to Nov. 27 of last year. The Caps limited the Avs’ top six to just four shots on net, and the entire Colorado squad was held to 19 shots, its lowest total this season.
“There’s a lot that goes into it,” says Caps’ defenseman John Carlson. “And I’m sure they will be looking at the tape, just like we will be, and what they’ve done since and what have you. But those are special players to just totally shut down, and you never go into a game expecting to hold MacKinnon without a shot or whatever it is. But that’s a big positive for our group, that we have that ability to play that suffocating brand of hockey. That’s big against teams with star talent like that, and we’ll look for hopefully the same result.”
“It doesn’t happen often,” says Caps’ defenseman Matt Roy. “It was nice to see. I think it takes five guys, you need a unit of five out there and you need them dialed in and ready to go when they’re on the ice, and against MacKinnon, [Mikko] Rantanen and especially [defenseman Cale] Makar. But you need a team that’s dialed in and playing a good team game. And if everyone’s playing together, you’ll have a better time shutting them down.”
Given the overall unlikelihood of their achievement, a repeat performance seems unlikely. But the Caps should have a fairly good recall of what went into that effort last Friday in Denver as they aim to neutralize a very dangerous offensive team once again.
“We’ll talk about some of the same things that we talked about before the Colorado game,” says Carbery. “And we’ll also make sure that our guys are well aware of the fact that their guys are going to be watching the same film, and they’re going to be not happy with the way that their games went in Colorado.”
In The Nets – Logan Thompson is the expected starter for the Capitals tonight as he seeks to extend his point streak – already the longest of any goaltender at the start of their Caps’ career – to 10 straight games (8-0-1). With 1.16 wins above replacement this season (moneypuck.com), Thompson ranks seventh among all goalies with five or more appearances.
In his most recent outing, Thompson defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in Sin City on Sunday, making 40 saves and stopping all 25 shots he faced in the third period. Lifetime against Colorado, Thompson is 1-1-0 with a 2.55 GAA and a .907 save pct. in two appearances, both starts.
Last week in Denver, the Caps faced – and ultimately chased – Justus Annunen because Alexandar Georgiev was sidelined with an upper body ailment. Georgiev is expected to be back in the crease for the Avalanche tonight; he missed just two games. Georgiev was last in the nets on Nov. 13 against Los Angeles, a game in which he needed to make only 13 saves to record his fourth win of the season and third in succession.
Lifetime against Washington, Georgiev is 6-5-1 in a dozen appearances with a shutout, a 2.95 GAA and a .904 save pct.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we believe the Capitals and the Avalanche might look when they take the ice on Thursday night in the District:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
88-Mangiapane, 17-Strome, 21-Protas
24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
29-Lapierre, 20-Eller, 13-Vrana
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 16-Raddysh
Defensemen
6-Chychrun, 74-Carlson
38-Sandin, 3-Roy
42-Fehervary, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Extras
27-Alexeyev
52-McIlrath
63-Miroshnichenko
Out/Injured
8-Ovechkin (lower body)
15-Milano (upper body)
19-Backstrom (hip)
77-Oshie (back)
COLORADO
Forwards
62-Lehkonen, 29-MacKinnon, 27-Drouin
13-Nichushkin, 37-Mittelstadt, 96-Rantanen
94-Kiviranta, 82-Ivan, 25-O’Connor
28-Woods, 17-Kelly, 51-Kovalenko
Defensemen
7-Toews, 8-Makar
49-Girard, 42-Manson
58-Kylington, 70-Malinski
Goaltenders
40-Georgiev
60-Annunen
Extras
3-Ludvig
9-Tynan
44-de Haan
Out/Injured
5-Poolman (head)
20-Colton (foot)
92-Landeskog (knee)
