The Washington Capitals are traveling to Boston on Tuesday to play the Bruins in their second preseason game. Washington dropped their first game to the Philadelphia Flyers 6-2 on Sunday, and many players from that loss will get a chance to turn things around at TD Garden.
Head coach Spencer Carbery got his game group on the ice for a morning skate at MedStar Capitals Iceplex before their flight up the East Coast. The second-year bench boss plans to get a good look at a few combinations, including Pierre-Luc Dubois’s trio, which he’ll likely use once the regular season begins.
Dubois has spent all of Training Camp skating with Connor McMichael and Tom Wilson on his flanks. Dubois has combined successfully with a winger of Wilson’s archetype, skating over 663 five-on-five minutes with Josh Anderson on the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Carbery has previously stated he placed Wilson with Dubois to help the latter quickly integrate into the team’s system play. He’ll get his first look at how that’s panning out in live game action against Boston, but he likes how the trio has looked during practices and scrimmages.
“Feel like they’ve had some good chemistry, keeping pucks alive, good decisions, a lot of [Dubois] using his frame to be able to hold on to some pucks, and getting to the interior of the rink,” Carbery said. “A lot of positives from that line thus far through camp.
“We thought about what the line would look like in the summer, putting Mikey there with some speed and skill…there’s some chemistry there.”
Dubois echoed some of those same thoughts ahead of the game.
“I’m feeling good,” Dubois said. “I think the important thing is getting better and better every day, and I think we’re doing a good job of that. Mikey and Willy have been helping a lot, communicating the system, just habits, little things that they like in the offensive zone, defensive zone. It won’t be perfect from the start, but as long as we get better every day, we’re doing a good job.”
One of Washington’s other major offseason additions, defenseman Matt Roy, will also make his preseason debut. Carbery had wanted to try Roy out with Rasmus Sandin as a pair, but Sandin is only now making his way to DC due to visa-related issues, so Roy’s first game will come next to Martin Fehervary.
The two rearguards have skated together to start camp, and Carbery says Roy has shown exactly why the Capitals decided to give him a six-year, $34.5 million deal in free agency.
“You can see why he’s been so successful,” Carbery said. “The less you notice him usually, the better because you go back through the film and you go, ‘Wow, great positioning, he defended that well, he made a great puck play there.’ His game is just so quiet, so reliable, and you know exactly what you’re going to get from him in situations where we don’t have the puck.
“And then when he gets the puck, it’s usually ending up in a really good spot. That’s been nice to see through Training Camp, and you can see why he’s going to be a big part of our D corps in a lot of different situations.”
Outside of Dubois’s line and Roy’s debut, the Capitals will see Hendrix Lapierre, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Andrew Cristall, Ethen Frank, Henrik Rybinski, Hardy Häman Aktell, Ethan Bear, and Hunter Shepard play in their second preseason games. Shepard will get the entire game in net after splitting his first start with Clay Stevenson.
The battles for the few open roster spots are heating up. Carbery says he spoke individually with a few of the skaters who played in the loss to Philadelphia and are also making the flight to Boston.
“Like I said the other night after the game and confirmed through some conversations today, there was a lot of nerves,” Carbery said. “Whether it was the three o’clock game, first game of the preseason, putting pressure on themselves to perform and show what they’re capable of doing.
“It just was an off night for a lot of the guys. Hopefully, now the guys that are playing in their second game, it’s more of a, ‘Okay, I’m comfortable. Got that one out of the way, and now I can put my best foot forward and show what I’m capable of doing.’ Let some weight off our shoulders a bit.”
The Capitals will play the Bruins twice during the preseason. Boston’s roster for the first game features very few regular NHL players with the most notable being Trent Frederic, Tyler Johnson, Matt Poitras, Brandon Carlo, and Hampus Lindholm.
Washington’s non-game group practiced normally on Tuesday ahead of another game against the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night, likely featuring most of those players.
