The Washington Capitals have been bit by the injury bug in recent weeks. They’ve lost a player to injury in each of the last four games as they enter a back-to-back onagainst the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings on Monday and Tuesday.
Reinforcements have arrived from the AHL-leading Hershey Bears and it looks like Hendrix Lapierre will be receiving his first game in the NHL in over a month against the Senators. Spencer Carbery has been forced to move players around the team’s lineup and we got our first look at the results of that at Monday’s morning skate.
Here’s how the changes all shook out via Monumental Sports Network’s Tarik El-Bashir.
Lapierre will jump into the fourth-line center role vacated by Nic Dowd’s recent injury. Aliaksei Protas had manned that spot the previous two games but has played his best hockey this year on the wing and Lapierre is a much more natural fit next to Beck Malenstyn and Nicolas Aube-Kubel.
After a one-game experiment that saw Connor McMichael line up with Alex Ovechkin and NAK on the top line, Carbery has restored his top-six forward group to a more familiar group. Ovechkin is back with Dylan Strome and Tom Wilson, a trio that has seen 57.8 percent of the expected goals at five-on-five this season.
McMichael has also been put back with Protas and Anthony Mantha. Those three when on the ice at five-on-five together have seen a similarly great 55.3 percent expected goals for percentage. Mantha is a game-time decision due to getting banged up against the Florida Panthers on Saturday so Pierrick Dubé filtered in on that line during some rushes.
If Mantha does play, Dubé and Ivan Miroshnichenko will be the healthy scratches at forward. Miroshnichenko was recalled on Monday morning with TJ Oshie being placed on injured reserve. The young Russian is not slated to play against the Senators.
On defense, Nick Jensen is also a game-time decision due to injury but appeared to be the odd man out on the pairings after leaving the skate early. Alex Alexeyev played in the overtime loss to Florida which forced Ethan Bear out of action but now both have been put together on the team’s third pairing.
Darcy Kuemper will get the start in goal after Charlie Lindgren took the reins for three games in a row. Kuemper’s last start came on February 17, a 28-save win over the Montreal Canadiens.
Ottawa comes into Monday night’s action winners of three of their last four. Those three wins have come against good opposition in the Tampa Bay Lightning, Dallas Stars, and Vegas Golden Knights. They currently sit seventh in the Atlantic Division.
