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Carl Hagelin skates in blue non-contact jersey before Capitals practice

By Chris Cerullo

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December 28, 2022 12:13 pm

The Washington Capitals held an optional practice on Wednesday at MedStar Capitals Iceplex a day after shutting out the New York Rangers 4-0.

Injured Capitals winger Carl Hagelin took the ice before the rest of his teammates. In early October, the team announced that Hagelin had arthroscopic hip surgery and would be out “indefinitely”.

Hagelin has not played a game for the Caps since February 28 of last season after suffering a serious eye injury at practice the following day. According to Hagelin back in May, an errant stick blade ruptured the choroid in the back of his left eye and his vision will never be the same.

“How good is that to see?” head coach Peter Laviolette said to The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir. “He’s just out there testing, just seeing where he’s at. He’s still in the distant future.”

Notably, the Swedish winger did not seem to be wearing any sort of extra facial protection for his skate on Wednesday morning as he has done in the past.

Although the eye issue would have likely seen him miss a large swath of games this season, Hagelin’s hip problem was what actually kept him off the ice for the entirety of training camp and beyond.

“He has a lower-body injury that needs to be addressed and we’re working through the final parts of it right now,” Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan said then. “He’ll be out indefinitely.

“It’s been an issue that lingered that he played with,” MacLellan added. “It’s gotten worse as time’s gone on. It’s at a bad point right now.”

The 34-year-old forward has played in 187 career games with the Capitals and recorded 66 points (20g, 46a). He is an unrestricted free agent after this season and would carry a $2.75 million cap hit if he were to be active at some stage this year.

Screenshot via @That_WriterGirl/Twitter