The Washington Capitals got back on the ice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on Tuesday morning after they took a well-earned day off on Monday. The Capitals earned three out of a possible four points on back-to-back nights against the top two teams in the league and will be right back in action against the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night.
Given that the team put together perhaps their best two-game set of the season over the weekend, head coach Spencer Carbery appears to be sticking with just about the same, successful lineup. The rookie bench boss has made just one change, moving Tom Wilson onto Nic Dowd’s checking line.
Here’s a refresher on what that will look like via Caps Radio’s Ben Raby.
While that would appear to be a demotion for Wilson to the “fourth line,” in reality, Dowd’s trio normally skates third-line minutes as they get almost all of the defensive zone starts and toughest five-on-five assignments. Among Capitals forwards, Dowd skates on average the seventh-most, even strength minutes per game this season.
One of the main reasons that Wilson may have been shifted to that line is due to the personnel on the other side of the ice. In the Capitals’ last matchup with Colorado just a few weeks ago, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen combined for 10 points (5g, 5a).
While a lot of that damage was done on power plays, Dowd’s line did get smacked around by MacKinnon’s line at five-on-five. With both sets of players on the ice, the Avalanche had positive differentials in both shot attempts (+7) and high-danger chances (+3).
“We need to be very cognizant of when [MacKinnon] is on the ice,” Carbery said Tuesday. “Whenever that line of him and Rantanen are playing together we need to be extremely aware. We’ll do a couple of specific things to try to neutralize his strengths.”
Wilson and Dowd have combined well in their small sample size of five-on-five ice time together this season. In just over 41 minutes of play with the two over the boards, the Capitals have seen 58.1 percent of the high-danger chances and 55.3 percent of the expected goals.
Charlie Lindgren will be back in net after shutting out the Boston Bruins on Saturday. Lindgren was stuck in goal for all six of Colorado’s tallies the last time these two teams faced off against each other. He faced 31 total shots in that loss.
The Avalanche come into the matchup on a four-game losing streak. In their last game, they were shut out 4-0 on the road by the Florida Panthers.
