ARLINGTON, VA — The Washington Capitals will see some changes to their lineup when they face the Dallas Stars Thursday night. With Evgeny Kuznetsov no longer a healthy scratch, Sonny Milano will sit out for the team’s first game back from their five-game road trip.
Milano first skated as an extra on Wednesday in the team’s first practice back home, and head coach Spencer Carbery confirmed Thursday that he would not play against Dallas, pointing to Milano’s lack of production as the impetus behind the move.
“He’s just been struggling offensively and a little bit of confidence,” he said. “I’ve met with him a couple times, had a tough road trip. And I think it probably started in the Edmonton game where there were some issues there and he ended up not playing a ton. And it sort of crept back in on the road trip.”
Though the Capitals as a whole have struggled to score, Milano in particular has seen his pace decline over the last few weeks and has now gone seven games without a point. Carbery elaborated on the changes he’s seen in Milano’s play over the last several games.
“When he gets into situations where he’s shown he’s really good and he’s able to make something happen and he’s able to find the right play–whether that’s a shot, whether it’s to try to take someone on one-on-one, whether it’s to move a puck– he’s shown early this year, those decisions for the most part were really, really good and were turning into positive things for our team,” he said.
“And that’s sort of turned on him a little bit. Now, those puck decisions are going the other way. And they’re turning over or they’re not connecting with what he had in mind.”
In his first season with the Capitals last year, Milano put up more than half a point per game, scoring 33 points (11g, 22a) in 64 contests. He began the 2023-24 season with a similar pace, with three goals and four assists in 14 games, but has since stagnated.
In some ways, the situation mirrors Kuznetsov’s healthy scratch against the Arizona Coyotes on Monday, which Carbery hoped would offer a “mental reset” to a player struggling to score. However, he drew a distinction between scratching one of the team’s stars with a player further down the depth chart.
“Sonny’s in a [very] different spot than Kuzy,” Carbery explained. “So maybe a little bit of a different objective. But at the same time, Sonny has to know he’s in a spot in his career where yeah, he’s shown he absolutely can be a quality NHL player, but this isn’t a situation where Sonny’s a 500-game veteran and done XYZ. He still has to earn it on a consistent basis.”
Still, Carbery waited several games before making his decision. He played Milano for just 5:10 against the Anaheim Ducks, limiting his minutes after his turnover gave Leo Carlsson the puck and led to a goal against, but kept him in the lineup for the next two games.
“He’s earned some rope, so that’s why he doesn’t come out right after the Edmonton game and even the Anaheim game where he gets beaten in that game one-on-one by Carlsson,” Carbery explained. “He doesn’t come out right away: he gets more rope; he’s earned that. Now once it gets to a point where I’ve got to say, ‘Listen, we’ve got to step back here and you’ve got to get your game back on track so that you get it back to a spot where I know it’s capable of and it’s going to help us win games.”
Even when pulling Milano out of the lineup, Carbery made a point to credit his work ethic through the scoring drought. “He’s working, I’ll tell you that. There’s no one on our group that wants it more. He’s trying.”
He later added, “So him just coming out, take a step back, reset, watch some film, and then just try to build that confidence back with the puck and with his offense.”
The Capitals will face some stiff competition in their first games back from the road trip, playing two of the top-10 teams in the next three days. They will play the Dallas Stars Thursday at 8 pm before facing the New York Rangers on Saturday.
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
