The Washington Capitals hit the ice Sunday morning before a date with the Minnesota Wild at Capital One Arena. It’s the first time the team will see game action since getting blown out by the Carolina Hurricanes 6-1 almost a week ago.

Head coach Peter Laviolette looks to have responded to that big loss by crafting an almost entirely new lineup, bolstered by the return from injury of multiple skaters. Most notably, however, The Washington Post’s Samantha Pell reports that a surging Connor McMichael appears set to be deemed extra as a healthy scratch.

Here is how the rest of Lavi’s new lineup looked at the skate via Pell.

If truly scratched, McMichael will sit in the press box eating nachos after a ten-game stretch that saw the Caps at five-on-five control 57.3-percent of the shot attempts, 65-percent of the expected goals, 61.9-percent of the scoring chances, and 68.8-percent of the high danger chances with him on the ice. Those were all team highs among the players that played in all ten of those games.

“He’s played excellent,” Laviolette said about McMichael before the Caps most recent game against the Canes. “His speed is really noticeable through the middle of the ice. He’s playing with a lot of confidence – he’s been really noticeable in the last five, six, seven games that he’s been in the middle of the ice.”

On the flip side, the team has suffered mightily with Lars Eller on the ice at five-on-five although we must remember the context of Eller’s recent shifts has been very different than McMichael’s. The Caps have only seen 44-percent of the shot attempts, 42.7-percent of the expected goals, 47-percent of the scoring chances, and 45.5-percent of the high danger chances with Eller out there.

“Tonight is a starting point with a group that’s hopefully getting healthier,” Laviolette told The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir Sunday. “We’ll see where it goes, but you have to play well within that lineup. If you don’t, for me, you don’t let it sit too long and you look to make changes.”

In other news, the new lineup also sees the return from injury of Nic Dowd, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Johan Larsson. If Larsson truly does play it will be his Capitals debut and the first NHL action he has seen since January 25 when he suited up for the Coyotes against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Dowd and TVR have both been out since getting dinged up in the same game against the Hurricanes on March 18.

The top-six forward group also received a makeover as a top line that looks straight out of 2015 has been put together. Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov have flipped spots as Marcus Johansson sees a promotion back onto Alex Ovechkin’s line. Johansson has zero points in the four games he has played since being acquired from the Seattle Kraken at the deadline.

Taking the cage for the first time in April after making ten starts in March will be Vitek Vanecek. Pell reports that the Czech netminder was the first off the ice at the skate as he looks to bounce back from a poor five goals against on 23 shots performance against Carolina.

Minnesota comes into Sunday night’s action firmly within the Western Conference playoff picture as they sit second in the NHL’s Central Division. They have been smoking hot of late, winning eight of their last ten.

Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong/RMNB