After a 4-3 shootout loss to the Buffalo Sabres, the Washington Capitals will likely see major changes to their forward lines against the Vancouver Canucks, Wednesday night.
Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery would not reveal the changes Wednesday morning, but admitted he has not been pleased with his team’s five-on-five play lately, especially from the most recent top line of Alex Ovechkin, Dylan Strome, and Taylor Raddysh.
“Haven’t loved it,” Carbery said after the Capitals’ morning skate. “Probably will go away from it tonight.”
Raddysh’s promotion had been Carbery’s latest attempt at revitalizing a faltering Ovechkin-Strome line. Since Ovechkin returned from injury on December 28, he and Strome have struggled in 67:13 of ice time at five-on-five: the Capitals have been outscored 4 to 2, out-chanced 44 to 26, and out-high-danger-chanced 21 to 9 by opposing teams. Even more concerning, the team’s expected goal percentage with them at five-on-five has been just 37.1.
Raddysh, a former 20-goal scorer with the Chicago Blackhawks, played the last two games on the right of Ovechkin and Strome, coming off his normal spot on the fourth line as Aliaksei Protas has found success with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tom Wilson.
Capitals lines against Buffalo on Jan. 6
“Raddy, I feel bad for a little bit, because we’ve put him in a spot where we’re trying to help,” Carbery said. “Stromer and O have struggled, to be honest with you. So that’s the reason that we’re trying to find [a solution] without having to break up the Dubois line, but I think at some point you’ve got to pull the trigger and break those three up to try to help other people.
“I think we’re at a point where you can have this line that’s going so well, but if you’ve got three lines that — I mean Dowder’s line is Dowder’s line, they’re always really solid — but I look more at Stromer’s line and our third line. If Stromer’s line is struggling to find it, we may have to rob Peter to pay Paul.”
The Capitals have lost three of their six games (3-1-2 record), sporting negative differentials at five-on-five in shot attempts (314-306), scoring chances (151-130), and high-danger chances (61-42). Their expected goals percentage of 45.1 is the fifth worst in the league during that span.
Carbery said that Ivan Miroshnichenko will return to the lineup against Vancouver and Jakub Vrana will sit. Carbery teased that Connor McMichael could return to the wing as well — “it’s a possibility, yeah” — as the team is “working through some injuries” and some “sick stuff.”
“Just depending on what works out injury-wise, [McMichael] may go back,” Carbery said.
Capitals defenseman Dylan McIlrath missed the morning skate entirely due to illness, but will be available to play against the Canucks if needed.
“He’s sick but he’s good to go today,” Carbery said. “We just kept him away. He is an option for tonight.”
Carbery said the lineup and who will and will not play will be more clear at 5:30 pm.
“I would like to see a well-rounded game tonight from us,” Carbery said. “I would like to see a little bit more consistency through not just the game overall, but just through our line combinations and D-pairs of what our process looks like.”
