The Washington Capitals will play their third preseason game against the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night, officially marking the halfway point of their exhibition slate. Washington has precious few roster spots up for grabs at their 2024 Training Camp, and fan-favorite forward Jakub Vrana is fighting for one.
Vrana will be in the lineup against New Jersey as he skates in his second game with Mike Sgarbossa and Alex Limoges. Head coach Spencer Carbery said after Wednesday’s morning skate that the matchup will be a “big” one for Vrana, who is in camp on a professional tryout agreement without a contract for the 2024-25 campaign.
“We’re going to need him to do something significant tonight,” Carbery said. “And it’s not about scoring. Like, yeah, does that help? For sure, it does – but he’s gotta be good in other areas too. He’s gotta be around the puck. He’s gotta have O-zone shifts. He can’t be spending 75 percent of his shifts in the defensive zone, and us walk out of the game and go, ‘That’s not going to cut it.'”
Vrana is part of a small group of wingers battling for the same one or two spots on the team’s regular-season roster. He joins names like Ivan Miroshnichenko, Ethen Frank, and Pierrick Dubé, who, unlike Vrana, have contracts for the upcoming season and are younger than the 28-year-old Czech.
“Well, I’ll be totally honest with you,” Carbery said. “In that competition – there hasn’t been a lot of separation thus far through camp, and I know there’s six preseason games and we’re two in, but it’s starting to get to the point where… you’re running out of bullets in the chamber, and that’s for all those guys in that competition.”
Miroshnichenko is the only one of the four to find the back of the net during the preseason so far, firing a snap shot to the top shelf while on a power play against the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday afternoon. Frank and Miroshnichenko dressed for both games so far, while Vrana and Dubé have played in just one.
“I don’t think anyone has necessarily played themselves out of that (competition),” Carbery said. “What I haven’t seen is someone take the bull by the horns and own that spot, and go, ‘Holy,’ i.e., Matt Phillips last year. Couldn’t keep him out of our lineup because of the way that he played and practiced day after day after day, game after game.”
Phillips arrived at Washington’s camp last year on a one-year, one-way contract at the league’s minimum salary and was able to force his way into Carbery’s opening night plans. The diminutive forward played in five of the team’s preseason games and tallied three points (2g, 1a).
The big camp led to Phillips playing 28 games for Washington during the 2023-24 season, tallying the first five points (1g, 4a) of his NHL career. Vrana, a veteran of 367 NHL games, will be hoping to do something similar after showing glimpses of his past self against the Flyers in his first game as a Capitals player in Capital One Arena in over 1,200 days. He led the team in shots on goal (6), individual shot attempts (8), and individual scoring chances (6).
“I want to be part of this team,” Vrana said last week. “I love this team, and it’s great to be back here for the camp and try my best to earn a spot on the team. It means a lot, man. This team means a lot to me.”
Washington will square off with the Devils inside of Prudential Center, with puck drop set for 7 pm. Alongside Vrana’s “big” game will come the preseason debut of the club’s captain, Alex Ovechkin, and Capitals debuts for offseason acquisitions Jakob Chychrun and Logan Thompson.
Andrew Cristall (2g) is the only Capitals player to record more than one point so far through the team’s two games. The Capitals are 0-2 and have been outscored 10-4 in their two losses.
