The Washington Capitals will be back on the ice Tuesday night as they have a date with the Florida Panthers. Assistant coach Kevin McCarthy has been behind the bench as head coach for the team’s last two games against the Tampa Bay Lightning due to Peter Laviolette’s COVID protocol stay.
That will change on Tuesday in Sunrise. Laviolette is out of protocol and will resume his role as the team’s bench boss against Florida.
The news was announced through Capitals PR.
#Caps head coach Peter Laviolette is out of the NHL's COVID protocol and will assume head coaching duties behind the bench tonight vs. Florida.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 15, 2022
The Capitals went 1-1 with McCarthy and assistant coach Blaine Forsythe mainly in charge for those two games against Tampa Bay. So far in November, the Caps are just 2-4-1 and have yet to win two games in a row.
Mike Vogel reports that the Capitals are on pace for their first sub-.500 mark in any month of November since the 2014-15 season and the first time they’ve finished below “NHL .500” (shootout/overtime losses) since 2011-12 when they went 5-8-1 in November. That particular November led to Dale Hunter taking over as head coach from Bruce Boudreau.
The Caps were 9-4-2 in November last season, and they put up a franchise-best 10-2-2 mark in November in the 2019-20 campaign.
Vogel also reports that the Caps are not expecting any return from injury and will have the same roster as they did on Sunday against the Lightning. We know that Sonny Milano received a promotion to the top line at practice on Monday, so here’s how the full lineup could look.
Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Milano
Johansson-Strome-Sheary
McMichael-Eller-Mantha
Protas-Dowd-Hathaway
Gustafsson-Carlson
Fehervary-Jensen
Irwin-TVR
Darcy Kuemper will return to the starter’s net after a very poor performance saw him yanked against the Lightning in the first period after giving up four goals on just nine shots. On the flip side, Sergei Bobrovsky will be on the force for the Panthers. Bob owns a 3-4-1 record in eight starts this season with a 3.29 goals-against average and a .897 save percentage.
The Panthers come into Tuesday night’s action also a bit inconsistent in November. They hold a 3-3 record in six games and were beaten by the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 in their last game on Saturday.
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
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