The Washington Capitals placed nine players on waivers and cut six others from their training camp roster on Monday.

Those moves, including the optioning of defenseman Martin Fehervary to Hershey and the disappearance of veteran goaltender Craig Anderson, put the Capitals’ roster at its 23-man limit.

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The key takeaways are that Conor Sheary played himself out of the lineup, Jonas Siegenthaler lost his spot in the lineup to Zdeno Chara, and Vitek Vanecek is the Capitals’ backup goaltender. Alex Ovechkin will also start the season with his longtime centerman, Nicklas Backstrom – not Evgeny Kuznetsov.

According to The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir, this puts the Capitals a razor-thin, but compliant $3,456 under the NHL’s $81.5 million salary cap. Henrik Lundqvist (open-heart surgery) and Michal Kempny’s (torn Achilles) deals will not count against the cap.

This configuration puts the #Caps $3,456 under the $81.5 million cap, using @CapFriendly's armchair GM function. https://t.co/e7bFjMKnXq

— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) January 11, 2021

Laviolette, according to El-Bashir, had a “lengthy post-practice chat” with his players after they completed their skate which first began at noon.

With the opening night roster mostly set, the #Caps huddled around Peter Laviolette for a lengthy post-practice chat. pic.twitter.com/ASdSeq4xt6

— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) January 11, 2021

The Capitals’ first game is Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres.

Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong/RMNB