Home / News / Christian Djoos replaces Brooks Orpik in lineup against the New Jersey Devils

Christian Djoos replaces Brooks Orpik in lineup against the New Jersey Devils

By Julia Karron

 3 Comments

March 19, 2019 12:11 pm

The Djoos is finally loose again.

After the Caps acquired Nick Jensen from the Detroit Red Wings before the trade deadline, Christian Djoos will finally get a look on the third pair with the newly-acquired defenseman.

Brooks Orpik is the night’s healthy scratch. Orpik has not missed a game since January 23 and has played in 22 consecutive games.

Orpik has played 44 games in the season thus far. He earned his $250,000 performance bonus for playing in his 40th game of the season on March 8. With his $1 million base pay and his payment from Colorado, Orpik is now effectively made whole after last summer’s buyout.

Djoos has missed the last 10 games as the Jensen-Orpik pairing was tested out as the third pairing since the acquisition. Djoos will hit a milestone 100th NHL game on Tuesday night against New Jersey.

“I felt like you try to put yourself in a situation where everyone’s ready to play and perform and be ready,” Head Coach Todd Reirden said of his decision to reintroduce Djoos back into the lineup. “And this seemed like the right time to put him in, with back-to-backs. It’s not a great situation to have players not playing for quite some time, so this will be a good situation for [Djoos] and I look forward to watching him.”

The 38-year-old Orpik has played in two separate sets of back-to-back games during that span, and likely will play in tomorrow’s game against the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Tampa Bay Lightning.

On his decision to sit Orpik after playing him for 22 consecutive games, Reirden said he has a policy of being straightforward with his players.

“It’s a conversation that a coach has with players. Some are easy, some are not easy. It’s truthful and exactly what the plan is, and going forward from here that’s how always I’ve operated and how always will operate. That’s always been a big one for me and some things that I’ve taken from some of the best coaches I’ve had is you may not always like what you’re going to hear, but you’re going to know the truth. So this is the lineup we’re going through tonight,” Reirden said.

Regarding whether Reirden sees Jensen as playing on the left side versus the right, Reirden says the Capitals system for the past five years sees defensemen play on their off sides often enough that it’s not out of the norm.

“Our players have the ability to be able to execute plays from either side of the ice. It does give a little bit of a different look for [Jensen] up top in the offensive blue line, where he can really attack that forward. We’ve seen his ability to break down players and offensive zone play. I think we can add a little bit of that element to our team tonight,” Reirden said.

Nic Dowd also returns to the lineup centering a fourth line of Andre Burakovsky and Chandler Stephenson. Pheonix Copley gets the nod in goal.

Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong

,