Sonny Milano will dress for the Washington Capitals for just the second time this season against the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday evening. The 28-year-old winger was in the team’s lineup for their 5-3 opening night loss to the New Jersey Devils but has been a healthy scratch for the last nine games.
Jakub Vrana replaced Milano on the team’s third line for those nine games and will now replace him in the press box on Sunday. The Czech winger tallied four points (2g, 2a) in his first nine games for the Capitals since the 2020-21 season.
“Vrana will come out of the lineup,” head coach Spencer Carbery said pregame. “Sonny will go in today.”
Milano played a game-low 5:52 of ice time against New Jersey and was a minus-3 in the loss. The rough performance came after a preseason during which Carbery directly challenged Milano to ramp up his game heading into the regular season. After the loss, Carbery swapped Milano for Vrana, and the Capitals won eight of their next nine games.
Carbery explained further that Vrana did nothing specific to earn the scratch. The second-year bench boss has liked what he’s seen from the club’s former first-round pick.
“Sonny has sat for a while here, so the thought process behind that is we gotta keep him involved and give him an opportunity to play a game,” Carbery said. “We’ve been on a pretty good run, so we’ve kept V in the lineup, deservedly so, he’s played strong. But, last night, it’s a back-to-back, thought it was a good opportunity to get Sonny in the lineup.”
Washington’s third line has seen the most change over the first ten games of the 2024-25 campaign. Aliaksei Protas originally started on the right wing of the line before he was moved up to the top line, and Andrew Mangiapane was moved down in his place. Hendrix Lapierre and Mike Sgarbossa have recently subbed in and out for each other down the middle, and now Milano comes back in for Vrana.
Lapierre returned to the lineup on Saturday night after missing two games. Carbery was encouraged enough by the young center’s performance to give him another jersey against Carolina.
“I thought he was pretty solid,” Carbery said. “The one shift wasn’t great where they get scored on, but I thought he did enough positive things to warrant playing again tonight and staying in the lineup to try to build off of last night.”
Outside of the Milano for Vrana swap, the only other change in the lineup will be Charlie Lindgren getting the nod in net for his sixth start of the season. Lindgren has been the goaltender in net for the team’s two losses this season, posting a 3-2 overall record with a 2.62 goals-against average and a .882 save percentage.
The Hurricanes come into the game riding a five-game winning streak, and they have not played since beating the Boston Bruins 8-2 last Thursday. Carolina is right behind the Capitals in the Metropolitan Division in terms of points percentage, having won seven of their nine games.
