The Washington Capitals are headed down to sunny, warm Florida for two games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers. Joining the trip will be injured centers Nicklas Backstrom and Nic Dowd.

Dowd has been day-to-day with a lower-body injury for a week and Backstrom is not eligible to return from long-term injured reserve until at the earliest November 6 against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Nic Dowd and Nicklas Backstrom will travel with the team on its Florida road trip. Dowd practiced today. Backstrom is not eligible to return and Laviolette said he will continue skating on his own.

— JJ Regan (@JJReganNBCS) October 31, 2021

“Everybody’s traveling,” Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette said at practice Sunday. “Especially because they’ve been a couple one gamers, so to get down there and spend some time, not a bad place to do it in Florida. It’s good to get everybody out going out there. Nick back into the fold, he’s continuing to work behind the scenes to try and get back to us. Just to get him on the road trip and have him around will be really good for our team.”

The Caps lined up at practice the same way they did against the Arizona Coyotes on Friday.

Capitals lines and D at practice today:

Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Mantha-McMichael-Sprong
Hagelin-Eller-Hathaway
Leason-Lapierre-Sheary
Dowd (dark blue jersey)

Fehervary-Carlson
Orlov-Jensen
TvR-Schultz
Cholowski-Irwin

Vanecek
Samsonov

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) October 31, 2021

“He’s out there, we’ll make a decision tomorrow,” Laviolette said of Dowd’s potential involvement. “He is coming on the trip, we’re working through things in the room right now.”

Headline photo: Cara Bahniuk/RMNB