Sunday morning, the Washington Capitals were on the ice at Capitals MedStar Iceplex, and joining the team as full participants were veterans TJ Oshie and Dmitry Orlov. Oshie and Orlov had been skating in non-contact jerseys in prior days.
The health status of both players is important when it comes to the team making final decisions for their 23-man roster to start the regular season. The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir reports that Brett Leason, Henrik Borgstrom, Lucas Johansen, and Axel Jonsson-Fjallby did not practice and he expects those four to be placed on waivers Sunday afternoon barring any setbacks from Oshie or Orlov.
Leason, Borgstrom, Johansen and Jonsson-Fjallby are not on the ice for practice on Sunday. They would seem to be the four players going on waivers at 2 p.m. I'm assuming the #Caps want to see how practice goes with Oshie (upper body) and Orlov (lower) before making a final call.
— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) October 9, 2022
That information tells us that the Capitals are planning on going into Wednesday’s opener against the Boston Bruins carrying 14 forwards, seven defensemen, and two netminders. Notably, forwards Aliaksei Protas, Joe Snively, and Connor McMichael would be in that group of 14.
The team also told the Washington Post’s Samantha Pell that Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson, Carl Hagelin, and Alexander Alexeyev will be on long-term injured reserve/non-roster list to start the campaign.
That leaves the prospective final roster as follows.
Forwards: Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, TJ Oshie, Anthony Mantha, Connor Brown, Lars Eller, Dylan Strome, Garnet Hathaway, Conor Sheary, Nic Dowd, Marcus Johansson, Connor McMichael, Joe Snively, Aliaksei Protas
Defensemen: John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov, Nick Jensen, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Erik Gustafsson, Martin Fehervary, Matt Irwin
Goaltenders: Darcy Kuemper, Charlie Lindgren
Oshie and Orlov returned to full practice after both missed the team’s final preseason game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Oshie suffered an upper-body injury due to a hit from Detroit Red Wings forward Joe Veleno. The cause of Orlov’s lower-body injury is still unclear.
Both players were previously listed as “day-to-day” according to head coach Peter Laviolette. They told Pell they should be good to go for the game against the Bruins.
Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin did not skate on Sunday as the team says he took a maintenance day.
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
