Dealing With The Devil(s) – Tonight in New Jersey, the Caps take on the Devils at Prudential Center. It’s their second preseason game in as many nights; they absorbed a 4-2 setback at the hands of the Bruins in Boston on Tuesday night. After tonight’s game, the preseason slate of six games will be halfway over.
The Caps have another preseason game on Friday, at home against Columbus. That will be their fourth preseason game in a span of six nights. After that busy stretch, things get sparse in a hurry. Following that Friday night game against the Blue Jackets, the Caps will play only two games – their final two preseason contests – in a span of 14 days. They’ve got four full days separating their last two exhibition matches, and a full week between their Oct. 5 preseason finale and their Oct. 12 season opener, also against the Devils.
So while the Caps will be dealing with the Devils in New Jersey tonight, they’ll also be dealing with a devil of a schedule for the next few weeks.
For their part, the Devils have a completely opposite type of preseason itinerary. Like the Caps, the Devils play their first four preseason games in a span of six nights. New Jersey will play its entire slate of seven preseason games in just 12 nights, and that’s because the Devils and the Buffalo Sabres are heading to Prague to open their season. They’ll play a set of back-to-backs there, then return home to play out the rest of their season. By the time the Devils and the Caps meet for Washington’s season opener on Oct. 12, New Jersey will be playing its fourth regular season game.
“And there's our schedule,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “Our preseason schedule is so unique, so unique. We've tossed around [ideas], and I had a bunch of different plans of just playing veteran guys the last three [games], because we play so few games in the last [third of the preseason]. It's unbelievable. And partly it is because our regular season opener is the latest in the league; we're the last team [to open] again.
“And New Jersey, because they're going over to Europe, that's going to be their fourth regular season game, our first game, right? So the spacing just makes it a little bit more challenging planning wise of when to get guys game reps.”
A Fine Line – Along with the schedule, another of the challenges of this training camp is to integrate seven new players into the lineup, the system and the locker room. Carbery and his staff have understandably been working with various combinations and trying out different looks; the preseason is an excellent laboratory for such experiments.
One line that has stayed intact for most of the preseason practices and scrimmages is the newly cobbled trio of Nic Dowd centering newcomers Brandon Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh. Looking at the Washington roster, Dowd is the fourth longest tenured Capital behind Alex Ovechkin, John Carlson and Tom Wilson, and the veteran center takes a communicative and cerebral approach to the game, making him an ideal guy to break in a pair of newly acquired wingers.
“I’ve really liked their practices,” says Carbery. “I feel like as quickly as they can – new guys playing together – they’re getting on the same page with the identity of the line, what they’re going to do, being predictable, and reading off one another. They’ve been communicating; all three of them have great personalities, so the communication between them before, after, and during drills has been really impressive to watch. Hopefully, they carry that over tonight to the game.”
For the past four seasons, Dowd has been a fixture in the middle of Washington’s “shutdown” line, initially with Carl Hagelin and Garnet Hathaway and later with Beck Malenstyn and others. Tonight, the new look Dowd line gets its first preseason run together against the Devils. Raddysh suited up for Sunday’s exhibition opener against Philadelphia, but Duhaime and Dowd are skating for the first time in the preseason tonight.
Given the new makeup of the line, will the trio’s identity remain more or less as it has been, or will it evolve? The Caps would like to have a shutdown line that’s also capable of chipping in some offense and some offensive zone possession.
“We’re trying to create something like that,” says Carbery. “Having a line that you can rely on in a bunch of different situations [is important]. And also, we want to try to be able to unlock a little bit of offensive-zone puck possession time there, which we weren't able to do as good of a job with last year. With Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh – who has scored 20 goals in this league – we’re feeling like we might be able to take a step in that department with, with Dowder’s line.”
Dowd has reached the double-digit level in goals in each of the last four seasons, and his average ice time in each of those four seasons is higher than each of his earliest seasons in the League. In 2023-24, he finished with a career best average of 15:12 per night.
“All three of those guys – and I’ve told them that, and Nic Dowd’s known this for a long time – is they play a lot of important minutes,” Carbery emphasizes. “This isn’t an eight-minute-a-night line; this is a potentially 14-minute a night line that can not only get a bunch of [defensive] zone starts, but it can also give us something from an [offensive] zone possession standpoint.”
It all starts tonight in Newark.
“Just go and work hard,” says Raddysh. “We’re all three guys that can play heavy, and play good at both ends – a full, 200-foot game – and when we get into the offensive zone, hold onto pucks and create things that way. We’re going to get to the net and when the [defensemen] get their shots through, it’s on us to win battles and get our chances that way. We’re a hard-working, heavy line, and I’m excited to get out there with them tonight.”
It’s Getting Late Early – Because of the lopsided preseason schedule, the Caps reach the midway point of their preseason slate before their camp is even a week old. And given that the last couple games of the exhibition season are typically dress rehearsals for the varsity opening night crew, the number of exhibition opportunities that bubble guys can expect to get are dwindling rapidly.
The number of young prospects and players ostensibly ticketed for AHL Hershey in the Washington lineup gets thinner by the game, and that’s true again tonight as Dowd, Duhaime, Alex Ovechkin, Dylan Strome, Andrew Mangiapane all suit up for the first time in the preseason tonight.
Also in the lineup tonight are Jakub Vrana, who is in camp on a PTO and trying to earn a contract, and Mike Sgarbossa, a longtime organizational fixture whose 25-game stint with the Caps last season was his longest NHL look since he saw action in 38 tilts in the 2016-17 season, split between Florida and Anaheim. Sgarbossa played quite well for Washington late last season, too, and he has more than earned a look for what is likely to be a single roster spot, that of the 13th forward, as the roster looks at this moment.
As we know, things can change on a dime in this game and at this time of year. A puck to the mouth in practice prevented Sgarbossa from playing Sunday’s preseason opener as scheduled, and he is now playing a bit of catch-up; he is the lone Caps skater in the lineup tonight who also took the ice in Boston last night.
For both Vrana and Sgarbossa, tonight’s game is of critical importance as they continue their respective quests. Although Vrana and Sgarbossa are the primary candidates — particularly from an experience standpoint – for what seems likely to be a single roster spot, there is a possibility the Caps could carry 14 forwards, too. And Vrana and Sgarbossa aren’t the only ones with eyes on landing that last roster berth, or two. The same is true of Andrew Cristall, Pierrick Dube, Ethen Frank, Alex Limoges, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Riley Sutter and Bogdan Trineyev.
Limoges, Sutter and Trineyev are also in tonight's Washington lineup.
“I’ll be totally honest with you,” says Carbery. “In that competition for that 12/13 [forward slot], there hasn't been a lot of separation thus far through camp. And I know there's six preseason games and we're two [games] in, but it's starting to get to the point where – and part of this is dictated by our preseason schedule – and the way it's set up. You could see those last two games being our very close to opening night lineup. So, you're running out of bullets in the chamber, and that’s [true] for all those guys in that competition to be that 12, 13,14 – however many [forwards] we go with.
“I don't think anyone has necessarily played themselves out of that. What I haven't seen is someone take the bull by the horns and own that spot and [make me] go ‘Holy …’ i.e. Matt Phillips last year. We couldn't keep [Phillips] out of our lineup because of the way that he played and practiced, day after day after day, game after game. And Vrana, for me, and you could group a lot of different guys in this group, is we're going to need him to do something significant tonight, and it's not about scoring. Does that help? For sure, it does. I’m not going to say that doesn't help, but he's got to be good in other areas, too. He's got to be around the puck. He's got to have [offensive] zone shifts. He can't be spending 75% of his shifts in the defensive zone, and us walk out of the game and go, ‘Wow.’ That's not going to cut it.”
It’s also worth remembering that Vrana is trying to earn a contract. The guys he is competing with already have contracts. The opening night roster is a bit of an artificial construct; it’s just a snapshot of the roster on a specific day, one of more than 180 days in the season. There aren’t enough roster berths to go around, but bubble players aren’t just competing for the opening night roster, they’re also competing to be among the first players recalled from AHL Hershey when need arises, as it inevitably does.
In The Nets – Over the last three and a half decades, no team has drafted more goaltending “man games” than the Capitals, and it’s not even close. And even though the Caps have been excellent at pulling NHL goaltenders from all up and down NHL drafts over that period of time, they’ve also excelled at finding, signing and developing undrafted netminders over that span.
Pheonix Copley, Logan Thompson, Hunter Shepard and Clay Stevenson are four recent examples of goaltenders the Caps have mined from those overlooked in the NHL draft. All but Stevenson have played in the NHL, and it’s not much of a stretch to see Stevenson joining that group at some point this season.
On Wednesday in New Jersey, Thompson gets the start for the Capitals. Signed in the summer of 2019 by the Capitals, Thompson spent his first full pro season in the Washington organization, manning the crease at ECHL South Carolina.
Thompson signed with Vegas a year later, and he ascended to the NHL with the Golden Knights in 2020-21, getting a single relief appearance. After splitting the next season between Vegas and AHL Henderson, Thompson was an NHL All-Star in 2022-23, and he was a member of the Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup championship squad in 2023 as well.
Reacquired from Vegas in a draft day deal in late June of this year, Thompson is expected to start and go the distance in Wednesday’s game against the Devils.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we expect the Capitals to line up for Wednesday’s preseason match in Newark, and here also is an expected lineup for the Devils:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 88-Mangiapane
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 16-Raddysh
13-Vrana, 23-Sgarbossa, 55-Limoges
91-Suzdalev, 61-Sutter, 87-Trineyev
Defensemen
6-Chychrun, 74-Carlson
27-Alexeyev, 57-van Riemsdyk
94-Massie, 52-McIlrath
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
78-Gibson
NEW JERSEY
Forwards
28-Meier, 86-Hughes, 63-Bratt
90-Tatar, 13-Hischier, 91-Mercer
18-Palat, 13-Dowling, 11-Noesen
23-MacDermid, 67-Parent, 61-Stillman
Defensemen
5-Dillon, 7-Hamilton
45-White, 57-DeSimone
93-Misyul, 24-Casey
Goaltenders
25-Markstrom
34-Allen
