The Detroit Red Wings face the Washington Capitals for the second time this season tonight (7:30 PM on Bally Sports Detroit/NBC Sports Washington/97.1 FM).
Between the fact that the 7-5-and-2 Red Wings have won 3 straight games, the fact that Alex Ovechkin happens to be tied with Brett Hull in the all-time goals race (with 741), and the fact that the 6-2-and-4 Capitals haven’t played since last Monday, when they snapped a 3-game losing streak by defeating the Buffalo Sabres 5-3…
This really feels like a “trap game” for the Red Wings, the kind of game where the Red Wings go in, looking back at their 3-2 OT win over Washington at the end of last month, and think, “Hmm, this won’t be a difficult win.”
Washington made a significant number of personnel moves on Wednesday, ahead of a 2-game road trip and set of back-to-back games tonight in Detroit and tomorrow in Columbus. NBC Sports Washington’s J.J. Regan summarizes the “flurry“:
Hendrix Lapierre was reassigned to Acadie-Bathurst, his junior team in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. In addition, forward Aliaksei Protas and goalie Zach Fucale were recalled from AHL Hershey and Nic Dowd was placed on injured reserve.
With Dowd on IR, the Caps are now down four forwards with Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie and Anthony Mantha also out injured. The addition of Protas gives the Caps 12 forwards making it likely we see the team play with four rookie forwards in the lineup on Thursday (Protas, Connor McMichael, Brett Leason, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby).
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By reassigning Lapierre now, it prevents him from reaching the 10-game threshold that would have kicked in the first year of his entry-level contract. His contract will now slide to next season. At the end of the day, it just was not worth burning a year of his contract so that Lapierre could play every other game for less than 10 minutes.
The Caps also added a third goalie with Fucale now on the roster. A late collision in Monday’s game appeared to leave Vanecek a bit banged up. He remained in the game, but gingerly took congratulations from the teammates afterward and appeared to be barely lifting his left arm.
Vanecek was on the ice Wednesday for practice so Fucale’s recall may just be a precaution.
The Washington Post’s Samantha Pell also took note of the Capitals’ moves…
[Nic] Dowd, who is eligible to come off injured reserve for Washington’s game Tuesday at Anaheim, is among a number of ailing Capitals. Center Nicklas Backstrom remains on long-term injured reserve with a hip injury and has yet to practice with the team. Anthony Mantha is out indefinitely after having shoulder surgery last week, and fellow winger T.J. Oshie remains in a walking boot after blocking a shot with his right foot in late October.
There also are minor injury questions in net. Laviolette said Washington brought up Fucale, 26, for precautionary reasons; Vitek Vanecek was involved in a collision in the final moments Monday night but finished the game. Vanecek was a full participant at Wednesday’s practice, and Laviolette said Washington is assessing his situation.
Fucale was 3-0-2 with a .933 save percentage and a 1.73 goals against average for the AHL’s Hershey Bears. He has yet to make his NHL debut.
“I feel like the last few years have been trending in the right direction and I got a good thing going and I’m just sticking to my game,” Fucale said. “Things are working well right now.”
Laviolette said all three of his goalies — Vanecek, Fucale and Ilya Samsonov — will travel to Detroit and Columbus. Those back-to-back contests Thursday and Friday start a stretch of seven games in 11 days.
The Capitals’ veterans have been playing more and more minutes as injuries take a toll. Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov lead the forwards in average ice time at 21:46 and 21:33.
“The three back-to-backs in two weeks is tough, so we’ll just wake up every day and just manage that day to do our best to be successful,” Laviolette said. “It is what it is.”
And Washington Hockey Now’s Sammi Silber says that the Capitals’ injury-depleted roster looked like this during Wednesday’s practice:
Looking at the roster as a whole, the Capitals have just 12 healthy forwards, eight defensemen and three goaltenders on the roster, and they also deployed some interesting line combinations on Wednesday:
Alex Ovechkin-Evgeny Kuznetsov-Tom Wilson
Conor Sheary-Connor McMichael-Daniel Sprong
Axel Jonsson-Fjallby-Lars Eller-Garnet Hathaway
Carl Hagelin-Aliaksei Protas-Brett Leason
Martin Fehervary-John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov-Nick Jensen
Trevor van Riemsdyk-Justin Schultz
Vitek Vanecek/Ilya Samsonov/Zach Fucale
With Dowd out, McMichael moves up to the top-6. Axel Jonsson-Fjallby will replace Carl Hagelin on the third line, with Eller slotting in for Dowd as usual. Hagelin, in turn, will help lead rookies Aliaksei Protas and Brett Leason on the fourth line.
Overall, the locker-room mentality remains the same: stick with the game plan.
“It happens. I’ve been on teams like this before,” Conor Sheary said of dealing with injuries. “We just got to trust what we’re going through, trust the process, trust the system and trust the players that we have on the ice. We’re obviously missing some big names, some big key guys in our lineup, but it’s not going to change the way we approach each game and how we go about each day. We’re just going to come to work and hopefully get a few wins.”
That sounds a lot like the Red Wings, who practiced without Filip Hronek, Lucas Raymond or Marc Staal on Wednesday (with no explanation as to why they missed practice other than “maintenance days” with status-to-be-determined).
WashingtonCapitals.com’s Mike Vogel focused on tonight’s match-up while speaking with Capitals coach Peter Laviolette on Wednesday:
Facing three sets of back-to-backs in 11 nights is challenging enough, but the Caps will open this stretch with four rookie forwards in their lineup: Leason, Protas, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby and Connor McMichael. It will be challenging for Laviolette and his staff to manage the ice time of the forward group in the upcoming sets of back-to-backs, more challenging than usual.
“It’s a little bit more difficult,” admits Laviolette. “It’s a little bit more challenging when you start knocking your depth, but I’ve got to give credit to the young guys that have come into the lineup. I think that they’ve done well. Our team has played good defense; I thought we were good defensively [Monday] night.
“People have to step up and we’ve got to get we got to work our way through it. But I did say too that it’s important that we just go one game at a time. We’re playing Detroit, so let’s not worry about Columbus at this point. Let’s watch the game and see how it goes and try to win that game, period. And then we’ll wake up and we’ll figure out where everything’s at.”
he Caps got their first look at the Red Wings in nearly two years when Detroit visited the District on Oct. 27. Washington forged a 2-0 second-period lead in that game, and it led 2-1 to start the third, but Detroit rallied to win it 3-2 on a Dylan Larkin goal in overtime.
Heading into Wednesday’s light slate of NHL activity, the Red Wings are in second place in the Atlantic Division, five points behind frontrunning Florida. Detroit carries a three-game winning streak into Thursday’s game with Washington, and the Wings are 4-1-2 on home ice this season.
The Wings are in the midst of a four-game homestand; they knocked off Vegas and Edmonton, respectively, prior to the Caps’ arrival in Motown. The homestand concludes when Montreal visits Detroit on Saturday night.
The Red Wings are right in the middle of a stretch in which they play 11 games over the course of 17 nights, so they’re not going to have much sympathy for the Caps’ plight.
If you do wish to take a gander at the Capitals’ 5-3 victory over Buffalo, the Associated Press and NHL.com (with stats) provide recaps, and here are Sportnset’s highlights:
The Red Wings’ lines from Wednesday’s practice were a jumble, and we won’t know who plays with whom until this morning’s skate, so we’ll focus on Field Level Media’s game preview…
Alex Ovechkin will look to climb another notch on the NHL’s all-time scoring list when the Washington Capitals visit the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday. The 36-year-old forward will surpass Brett Hull for fourth on the all-time goals list the next time he scores. Ovechkin tied Hull with his 741st career goal on Monday when the Capitals skated to a 5-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres.
“It’s nice to be in that company and it’s a pretty big number,” he said. “I just move on. Obviously it’s nice to be tied, but I still have a couple of games left.”
Ovechkin certainly shows no signs of slowing down. He’s already piled up a league-high 11 goals this season entering play on Wednesday.
“Alex, another strong game from him (Monday),” Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said. “He just had a lot going on. He had a lot of pucks around his stick and at the net. He could have gotten another one or two (Monday) for sure. … He got one to go, he made some nice plays, too, moving pucks to other people for opportunities to score as well.”
Washington snapped a three-game losing streak with its victory over the Sabres.
“The most important thing right now is team wins,” forward Tom Wilson said. “We’ve got some adversity going and we’re rallying together and trying to collect the wins.”
The Red Wings have been doing that lately, as they carry a three-game winning streak into the contest. They started the streak with an overtime triumph in Buffalo, then collected victories in the first two contests of their current four-game homestand. They defeated Vegas on Sunday and Edmonton on Tuesday.
The AP’s game set-up…
BOTTOM LINE: The Washington Capitals visit Detroit after Vladislav Namestnikov scored two goals in the Red Wings’ 4-2 win against the Oilers.
The Red Wings are 3-4-2 against Eastern Conference opponents. Detroit is seventh in the Eastern Conference averaging 3.1 goals per game, led by Tyler Bertuzzi with nine.
The Capitals are 2-1-0 against opponents from the Metropolitan. Washington leads the Eastern Conference with two shorthanded goals, led by Alex Ovechkin with one.
Detroit knocked off Washington 3-2 in the last meeting between these teams on Oct. 27.
TOP PERFORMERS: Bertuzzi has 15 total points for the Red Wings, nine goals and six assists. Lucas Raymond has 11 points over the last 10 games for Detroit.
Ovechkin leads the Capitals with 21 points, scoring 11 goals and adding 10 assists. Evgeny Kuznetsov has eight assists over the last 10 games for Washington.
LAST 10 GAMES: Red Wings: 5-4-1, averaging three goals, 5.3 assists, 3.3 penalties and 6.6 penalty minutes while giving up 3.2 goals per game with a .906 save percentage.
Capitals: 5-2-3, averaging 3.6 goals, 5.5 assists, 3.1 penalties and seven penalty minutes while allowing 2.9 goals per game with an .895 save percentage.
And the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan’s practice report, which offers the following assessment of the State of the Wings, per Vladislav Namestnikov and coach Jeff Blashill:
“The mood is good,” Namestnikov said. “Even when we were losing everyone was in good spirits. Everyone believes in each other, that we have a good team. When we roll four lines it’s hard to play against us. We want to be that team that when teams come in here, they say, ‘Wow, it’s hard to play against these guys.’ Hopefully we can keep rolling and keep winning.”
Blashill the confidence is building through the fact the Wings have better talent, and know they can rally to win games. Plus, the fact this core has gone through a lot the past several seasons, and has learned how to win games.
“We’ve talked about how we’ve infused some talent,” Blashill said. “That gives you chances to make plays and gets you back in games. That’s not necessarily a learning process. We’ve infused talent, and you stay in the games longer.
“There is a maturity level that when you go down a couple of goals, to not play to lose, and understanding there’s still a lot of time and you have to keep playing the right way. If you go down a couple of goals and give up chances, you can’t cheat for offense at that point. You have to make sure your game plan stays the same as it was when the game started and you make them earn their offense, and you’re creating offense.
“Confidence is earned through the knowledge you do have talent to go out and win the hockey game regardless if you’re down. It’s a learning process and we’ve gone through different things over the last couple of years and some of them have been around here and learned from it. As we go through this season, we’re continuing to learn.
“We did a better job (against Edmonton) than we did the previous game, or the Tampa game opening night (losing 7-6 in overtime, losing a late lead). We just have to keep growing and getting better.”
Alex Nedeljkovic and coach Blashill spoke with the media on Wednesday:
