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Daniel Sprong replaces Tom Wilson in the lineup, Ilya Samsonov will start against Flyers

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The Washington Capitals will turn to Daniel Sprong with Tom Wilson suspended and out of the lineup for the next seven games.

Sprong slot into the second line during the Capitals’ morning skate on Sunday and skated with Jakub Vrana and Evgeny Kuznetsov. The Capitals play the Philadelphia Flyers at Wells Fargo Center at 7 pm.

“I thought [Sprong] was playing really well,” Laviolette said after practice. “We haven’t seen him in a little bit, but that’s not necessarily a fault of his. We’ve just been caught with numbers that have been on our side. He now gets a chance to draw back into the lineup. He’s playing with Vrana and Kuznetsov. I think it was maybe Game 4, they were together as a line and they were really good. Obviously, we have to adjust our lines a little bit now. We’re going to put that line back together because they were a good line before. There’s some familiarity now with all the other lines as well so we’ll roll like this and see how it goes.”

Laviolette also made it a point to say that filling Wilson’s role in the lineup would be a multiple-player job.

“I don’t think you do [replace Tom],” Laviolette said. “I think you try to replace some of the pieces. Try to get some physicality from other guys, get some scoring from other guys. We’ve got to fill a penalty kill piece, a power-play piece. A power forward is not as common in the game any more as maybe they were. 10 years or 20 years ago, if you had one, you were pretty fortunate and I think Tom is a good one.”

Ilya Samsonov will draw his second start in a week after playing four games for the Hershey Bears to regain his conditioning. Samsonov won his last start on February 28, helping the Capitals beat the Devils 3-2. Samsonov stopped 19 of 21 shots in the victory.

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