Sunday, the Washington Capitals hit the ice for their morning skate before taking on the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Caps are back home after five straight on the road saw them go 3-1-1.
A welcome sight at that skate according to The Washington Post’s Samantha Pell, was the presence of Joe Snively in a non-contact sweater. Snively has not dressed with the team since the last day of February due to having surgery on his left wrist.
The last we saw the former Little Cap, he was still working his way back with the Capitals’ strength and conditioning coach Mark Nemish.
In his rookie season in the NHL, he has played in twelve games and recorded seven points. In mid-March, he signed a two-year, $1.6 million extension that will keep him with the team through the 2023-24 season. He was originally scheduled to become a Group 6 unrestricted free agent at the year’s end.
With how the lineup has taken shape over the final weeks of the season and with the Capitals still in a race to move up in the Eastern Conference playoff seeding it’s unlikely Snively will get another regular-season game in the 2021-22 campaign. More than likely, he will just be extra depth for the upcoming postseason run.
Goaltender Vitek Vanecek was in the starter’s net at the skate according to The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir. The Czech netminder earned his fourth shutout of the season and sixth of his career against the Arizona Coyotes on Friday night.
The Leafs saw the Caps on the Caps aforementioned recent road trip and it was not a pretty game. Toronto ran up the score in a 7-3 victory that really was never close from the first drop of the puck. They have lost two in a row coming into Sunday night’s action and Auston Matthews is still looking for goals 59 and 60 on the season.
Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong/RMNB
