Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery is taking a hammer to his forward lines once again after the team’s first regulation victory of the season, a 6-4 shootout against the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday. Carbery introduced the new forward groupings during the team’s morning skate ahead of its game against the Minnesota Wild later in the night. Many of the lines first came together against the Devils.
Most notably, the Capitals’ top line looks more similar to the end of last season, putting together Alex Ovechkin, Dylan Strome, and Tom Wilson. The Matthew Phillips top-line experiment is over as the prospect has been bumped down to the bottom line.
The full lines and pairings from the morning skate were posted by Monumental Sports Network’s Tarik El-Bashir on X.
Ovechkin-Strome-Wilson
Milano-Kuznetsov-Oshie
McMichael-Backstrom-Mantha
Malenstyn-Protas-Phillips
Fehervary-Carlson
Sandin-TvR
Alexeyev-Jensen
Haman Aktell-Johansen
Kuemper
Shepard
Lindgren
Here was the starting line up for the previous game per the Capitals.
The Ovechkin-Strome-Wilson trio has spent 23:04 of ice time together at five-on-five this season and have dominated in that short amount of time. The line has earned 73.7 percent of the expected goals while together, positing positive differentials in shot attempts (21-11) and scoring chances (7-4). They’ve also out-scored the opposition 2 to 1 at five-on-five.
To Carbery, Strome’s style of play works particularly well alongside Ovechkin.
“[Strome] is a very, very intelligent puck mover playmaker,” he told reporters Friday morning. “What I mean by that is he’s very aware of where other people are on the ice. And so when he gets pucks, whether it’s in the offensive zone or off the rush, he’s already evaluated where defenders are and where his line mates are. He’s an elite-level vision of the ice.”
Carbery later added, “His vision of the ice is really, really elite. So I feel like he’s able to find [Ovechkin] in different spots and knows where to look for him and already sees where he’s going before he even gets to the puck.”
The second line will feature three electric play-makers in Sonny Milano, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and TJ Oshie while the third line will boast Connor McMichael, Nicklas Backstrom, and Anthony Mantha. Friday’s game will mark the first time this season McMichael will not start on the Caps’ second line and skate with Evgeny Kuznetsov. Mantha earned a promotion after his first multi-point game of the season, scoring the Caps’ first goal against the Devils and later assisting on the team’s game-winner scored by McMichael.
Aliaksei Protas and Beck Malenstyn will continue their checking line role without an injured Nic Dowd, but now they have a finisher on the flank in Phillips.
The Capitals’ defense pairings remained the same though Carbery cautioned Rasmus Sandin was not guaranteed to play against the Wild after suffering an injury against the Devils.
After notching his first career win in his first career NHL start, Hunter Shepard remained in DC as Charlie Lindgren still rehabs an injury. Lindgren “will not dress tonight” per Carbery. Darcy Kuemper will get the start.
The last-in-the-Metro Capitals (2-3-1 record) will try post their first winning-streak of the young season against a fast Wild team that has scuffled a bit out of the game (3-3-1). Puck drop will be at 7 pm.
