In his media availability on Thursday morning, Caps head coach Todd Reirden set expectations for tonight’s round-robin game against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Travis Boyd will step into the lineup, but less is certain about John Carlson.

Yesterday, forward Lars Eller left the Toronto bubble to attend the birth of his son back in DC. As expected, Travis Boyd will take Eller’s spot as third-line center.

Boyd, 26, played in 24 games for the Caps this season, scoring 10 points in a bottom-six role.

Defender John Carlson, who suffered an injury late in the Caps’ exhibition game against the Carolina Hurricanes, will be a game-time decision. He held the same status for the Caps’ first round-robin game, which he did not play. The injury is not expected to be serious, and the Norris finalist’s status is precautionary.

“The number-one thing is we are not putting him out there with a chance to make his injury worse,” Reirden said. “He’s too important to our team.”

With Boyd in and Carlson’s presumably out, the lines look like this:

Ovechkin – Kuznetsov – Wilson
Vrana – Backstrom – Oshie
Hagelin – Boyd – Kovalchuk
Panik – Dowd – Hathaway

Dillon – Orlov
Kempny – Gudas
Siegenthaler – Jensen

Holtby
Vanecek

The Caps will face the Flyers at 4 PM.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Flyers

Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong