The Washington Capitals have an incredibly important test on Friday night against the Carolina Hurricanes. The team’s playoff hopes may rest on whether or not they can get a result against Carolina on the road in the second half of a back-to-back.
According to head coach Spencer Carbery during his pregame media availability, the Capitals will be going with the same set of 18 skaters that he sent out in a losing effort to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night. However, Carbery insinuated that he plans on shaking up his line combinations in Raleigh.
“The most challenging part of the season for us as coaches has been finding combinations that have fit and been able to generate chemistry and then stick with that,” Carbery said. “Because it’s just been so volatile with consistency between lines, consistency between players. We’ve had a lot of solid play but the production part is what we’ve searched for all year. It’s not ideal having to move lines around all the time.
“Hopefully, tonight, no matter the lines and the way that they shake out is guys stepping up and making some big plays and playing just a hard, physical game.”
Here’s a refresher on what the lines and defense pairings looked like to start Thursday night’s contest.
Carbery gave us a glimpse at what some of those changes might look like with the mid-game modifications he made against the Penguins. The primary move saw centers Dylan Strome and Connor McMichael switch lines in the top six. Sonny Milano also received a temporary promotion to the second line, forcing Ivan Miroshnichenko down to the bottom six for the second game in a row.
“We need some guys to step up big time, offensively,” Carbery said. “Some of the guys that we’ve leaned on have been going pretty well of late, [Alex Ovechkin], [Dylan Strome], those guys have done a good job for us and now in the most critical moments we need some of that. We need some secondary scoring as well, but we certainly need our big guys to show up and be difference makers for us in these big moments because we rely on them so heavily to produce in games like this.”
The Capitals will once again be without veteran winger TJ Oshie after Carbery ruled him out of this game on Thursday. Oshie reportedly went and saw the team doctor during the team’s morning skate before their loss to the Penguins.
Carbery also declared Darcy Kuemper will start Friday night. Kuemper’s last start also came against Carolina, when he surrendered four goals on 22 shots before being pulled in favor of Charlie Lindgren to start the third period. Kuemper has not won a start since February 26 against the Ottawa Senators.
The veteran backstop also recently left practice early due to tweaking something in his back. The painful injury scare made it a necessity for the Capitals to recall Hunter Shepard on an emergency basis for this short trip down to Raleigh.
Carolina will also play the back half of a back-to-back on Friday night, but they did not have to travel after the Boston Bruins beat them 4-1 at PNC Arena on Thursday. The Hurricanes have been good overall of late, winning seven of their last ten games.
