Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery revealed a few lineup changes in his pregame media availability on Wednesday. The Capitals are set to take on the Colorado Avalanche in Denver after losing to the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night.
Defenseman Ethan Bear was scratched against the Wild but will draw back into the fray against the Avalanche. Bear coming back into the lineup means that Trevor van Riemsdyk will take a seat back in the press box.
TVR has been a healthy scratch multiple times now in January as the Capitals retain eight defensemen on their active roster. Carbery spoke about the challenges that players like TVR are currently facing with the level of competition within the team.
“It’s not ideal for TVR to go into a game and then come back out,” Carbery said. “Thought he struggled last night and it’s hard to do that. You go back in and now all of a sudden you’re trying to get into a rhythm and you sat. There are significant challenges with that and I understand that. But, at the same time, it’s competition. It’s difficult on those guys but they gotta seize their opportunity.”
In 14:58 of ice time against Minnesota, TVR got pounded by the Wild. During his minutes the Capitals were outscored 3-0, out-attempted 19-11, and out-high danger chanced 5-0. Bear will take his spot next to Rasmus Sandin as Carbery searches for consistent defense pairings.
Carbery was quite critical of Bear before the rearguard’s scratch on Tuesday. The rookie bench boss blatantly stated that he did not believe that Bear was “where he needs to be” in terms of his recovery from injury and his level of adaptation to the Capitals’ system.
“Just feel like he could use a little bit of a step back, come out of the lineup, talk to him about a few things,” Carbery said. “It’s just not seamless for him quite yet.”
Up front, the Capitals seem to be an even bigger mess. According to NaturalStatTrick, Carbery deployed 11 different forward lines against the Wild. One pairing he found that he did like was one that combined for a goal in the game: Evgeny Kuznetsov and Anthony Mantha.
“I thought Kuz and [Mantha] were our two best players on the ice last night,” Carbery said Wednesday. “That was a good combination that we hadn’t used a lot this year. Felt like there was a little chemistry there so we’ll go back with that and tweak some other things. Just trying to find some consistency in that top six of a little bit of chemistry that we can rely on game to game.”
The only other addition to the team sheet will be the return to net for Charlie Lindgren. Lindgren sat and watched as Darcy Kuemper, his battery mate, provided another poor showing this season. MoneyPuck had Kuemper stopping 2.44 fewer goals than expected which was the difference in the 5-3 loss.
Lindgren also lost in his last start, a 3-0 decision in St. Louis. In January, the 30-year-old netminder is 2-2 with a 2.27 goals-against average and a .916 save percentage.
