The Washington Capitals are headed up to Hershey, Pennsylvania to play their second game of the preseason against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night.
The game will see Hershey’s Giant Center play host to NHL action for the fourth time since the arena opened in 2002. Puck drop on the newly redesigned ice sheet at the Bears’ home rink is scheduled for 7 pm.
Head coach Spencer Carbery has assembled a roster dotted with the team’s top prospects, former Bears players, and NHL veterans.
Capitals players from last season making their preseason debut include:
- Ryan Leonard
- Dylan Strome
- Aliaksei Protas
- Connor McMichael
- Matt Roy
- Rasmus Sandin
- Dylan McIlrath
- Clay Stevenson
- Charlie Lindgren
Carbery, who is excited himself to get back behind the bench in Hershey, is also getting an immediate additional look at a few players on the fringe of the team’s roster, deploying Sonny Milano, Hendrix Lapierre, Ethen Frank, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Vincent Iorio, and Declan Chisholm for a second-straight game. Milano and Lapierre combined to record seven points (3g, 4a) on a line for the Capitals against the Bruins.
Former and current Bears players on the roster include A. Protas, McMichael, McIlrath, Stevenson, Milano, Lapierre, Frank, Miroshnichenko, Iorio, Spencer Smallman, Matt Strome, and David Gucciardi. Bears fans will also get their first look at two names that could be a big part of their AHL roster this year, Andrew Cristall and Ilya Protas.
“We wanted some guys, if you were picking between A and B, why not pick A because they played there (Hershey), they’ve had success there, they enjoyed playing there, if everything else being equal,” Carbery said Thursday morning. “That’s sort of the way that we thought with Mikey and Pro, Matt Strome, to get into a game at the Giant Center. And those guys love that. They enjoyed their time down there, so to be able to play back in front of that community and fan base again, all of them are pumped.”
Alex Ovechkin will not be making the trip up with the Capitals as he continues to recover from a lower-body injury, while Justin Sourdif is on the trip after starting training camp in a no-contact jersey due to an illness.
Carbery hinted on Wednesday that he plans to deploy both the Strome and Protas brothers together at points during the game, despite them not skating on the same lines at practice.
Projected Capitals lineup for preseason game in Hershey
Thursday night’s matchup will be televised on Monumental Sports Network. The Capitals will play six total preseason games this fall against four different teams.
All other Capitals players not involved in the game will practice and scrimmage at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. The team is then scheduled to have a full day off on Friday.
