This article is over 3 years old

Tom Wilson participates in Capitals morning skate before Hurricanes game

by

4 Comments

Share:

The Washington Capitals are scheduled to take on the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday in a Stadium Series game preview.

The Caps got on the ice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex for their morning skate and present in a regular jersey was forward Tom Wilson. Wilson has not practiced with the team since they returned from their extended break due to a lower-body injury.

The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir reported the news on Twitter.

El-Bashir had previously reported last week that Wilson was sporting a pretty “noticeable limp” as he worked his way around the practice facility. The 28-year-old winger initially suffered his latest lower-body injury in the Capitals’ game against the Colorado Avalanche on January 24.

Wilson went to one knee to block a Mikko Rantanen shot and was struck by the hard shot in the ankle area of his right leg. He ended up skating just nine total minutes in that game before departing and never returning.

That late January matchup was just Wilson’s eighth game of the season since returning from major offseason knee surgery. The big forward has recorded three total points (2g, 1a) in those games.

While Wilson skating in a regular practice jersey is a good sign, it does not appear he will play against Carolina. Here are the team’s lines.

The Caps announced early on Tuesday that captain Alex Ovechkin will not be available as he takes a leave of absence due to personal reasons. Aliaksei Protas will take his spot on the left wing of the top line next to Dylan Strome. Protas has skated a little less than 40 minutes at five-on-five with Strome this season.

Anthony Mantha has been slotted in on the second line after missing Sunday’s game against the San Jose Sharks due to an illness. Conor Sheary will remain on the left wing of that line centered by Evgeny Kuznetsov.

The team’s third line is the only constant among the forward group. In a small sample size (28 minutes), Sonny Milano, Nicklas Backstrom, and Marcus Johansson have been very successful when paired together. The Caps see 56.4 percent of the shot attempts, 60.1 percent of the expected goals, 60 percent of the scoring chances, and 58.3 percent of the high-danger chances with that trio on the ice.

Finally, Nicolas Aube-Kubel will drop down to the fourth line after spending some time on the first line with Ovechkin and Strome. NAK has one points in his last nine games.

Darcy Kuemper was the first netminder off of the ice at the skate so he will be back in net and looking for a second-straight victory after taking down the league-leading Bruins on Saturday. Kuemper was beat by the Canes in a shootout on Halloween in the only game the two teams have played against one another this season.

The Canes will come into the action winners of eight of their last 10. They lost their last time out against the New York Rangers on Saturday.

Update (3:15 pm): Wilson has been placed on injured reserve to make room for Joe Snively’s recall to the NHL. Alex Ovechkin remains on the active roster for now.

Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB

Related Articles

RMNB is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHLPA, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.

All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International – unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.

zamboni logo