The Washington Capitals, who were already without regulars like Nicklas Backstrom, TJ Oshie, Nic Dowd, and John Carlson against the Colorado Avalanche, watched in horror as Tom Wilson left the game after blocking a shot with his right leg. The injury occurred midway through the second period and he did not return.
Wilson was playing for only the eighth time this season since returning in early January from offseason knee surgery.
The good news is the team appears to have dodged the bullet on another serious injury to their big winger according to Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette.
“Right now, day-to-day lower body and we’ll see how he is,” Laviolette said after the Capitals’ 3-2 loss.
“It’s always tough to lose somebody,” he added. “It’s tough to lose him and his physicality and his presence. It was tough to lose him here where the bench shortens up as well and the altitude. Some guys were double-shifting.”
The Capitals were already without Nicklas Backstrom, who was a surprise scratch for the game due to an illness, and TJ Oshie due to the pending birth of his fourth child. Wilson and Backstrom both made their season debuts against the Columbus Blue Jackets on January 8.
“It’s hard especially for those two guys, they’ve been practicing a lot,” Evgeny Kuznetsov said. “Missing this type of game speed, it’s not what you want because you always want to be playing these types of teams and this environment. I’m hoping the next game they’re going to be back.”
“Those guys are two of our top forwards and two of our leaders in the locker room,” Conor Sheary said. “When they’re not here to have their voice — and Osh too who obviously wasn’t here — to not have their voice sometimes it can hurt us.”
Alex Ovechkin made his return to the lineup and scored his 811th career goal — despite not being 100 percent himself — and Aliaksei Protas got a jersey for the first time since Wilson and Backstrom returned.
“I thought Protas came in and gave us really good minutes,” Laviolette said. “Good for him, he hadn’t played for us in a little bit. He jumped in and looked really good.”
Sheary agreed.
“I thought Protas had a good game stepping in there on late notice. It’s kind of next man up and next man do their job. I thought overall we did a good job (weathering the injuries).”
The Capitals will now hope that their stars can return as they come back home on Thursday to take on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Both teams have the same amount of standings points and sit in the first and second wild card spots in the East.
“That should be pretty good game against Pitt, right?” Kuznetsov said.
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
