The Washington Capitals have lost four of their last five games, including last night’s 6-3 throttling to the Colorado Avalanche. In an effort to jumpstart his team, head coach Todd Reirden has changed up the lines.
Tuesday during practice, literally every forward line was different.
Looks like a lineup shakeup at #Caps practice:
Ovechkin-Backstrom-Oshie
Hagelin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Vrana-Eller-Hathaway
Leispsic-Stephenson-PanikSiegenthaler-Carlson
Orlov-Gudas
Jensen-LewingtonExtras: Kempny, Dowd
— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) October 15, 2019
A summary of the forward changes:
- TJ Oshie was promoted to the top line.
- Top Line Tom is now Second Line Tom
- Carl Hagelin has been promoted to the second line
- Jakub Vrana has been demoted to the third line
- Garnet Hathaway has been promoted to the third line
- Richard Panik has been demoted to the fourth line
- Nic Dowd has been benched
- Chandler Stephenson is centering the fourth line again
Whew! That’s a lot.
On the backend, Radko Gudas has been promoted to the second pairing while Nick Jensen has been dropped to the third and will skate with Tyler Lewington.
The changes reflect Reirden’s frustration with his team trying to get into a game of shinny with the Colorado Avalanche, one of the most talented teams in the league.
“They have a high-skilled lineup and if you want to go skill-for-skill with them to start the game, you’re going to end up in a track meet type of game,” Reirden said. “You want to forecheck and play in the offensive zone and be physical with them and all of a sudden it became a different game. So, pretty clear to me.”
Reirden benched several players last night in the third period to send a message. Jakub Vrana skated only three third period shifts while Richard Panik skated two.
The Capitals play the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday at Capital One Arena.
