ARLINGTON, VA — The Washington Capitals will play their last game of the preseason on Saturday with just days remaining until the start of the regular season. While the preseason finale is often used as a dress rehearsal, with teams icing something approximating their Opening Night lineup, the Capitals still have a series of decisions to make about who will make the final cut.
Bubble players Hendrix Lapierre, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Dylan McIlrath, and Declan Chisholm will all dress against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday for one last in-game test. Head coach Spencer Carbery declined to offer an evaluation of individual players, but he noted the team was still considering its options, saying that players’ performances on Saturday will “for sure” impact who gets to stay in DC for the regular season.
The Capitals will need to cut four players from their current training camp group and submit a 23-man roster to the NHL by 5 pm on Monday.
“These decisions that we’re going to make as an organization are not taken lightly at all,” Carbery said Saturday morning. “The pros and cons to each player, each situation, all the different stuff that goes into it, age, waiver (eligibility), everything is accounted for and talked about and measured. And so these are very calculated.
“They’re not always the right decisions, but we’re going to do everything we can as an organization to make the best possible decision for the Washington Capitals organization. We’ll take that into the game tonight, and after the game tonight, and make decisions in the next few days accordingly.”
Notable players not playing against Columbus include forward Ethen Frank, defenseman Vincent Iorio, and goaltender Clay Stevenson.
Regardless of who they pick, the Capitals will face some amount of risk with their last round of cuts. Excluding Ryan Leonard (who is all but guaranteed to make the team), Miroshnichenko is the only waivers-exempt player left on the roster, meaning the Capitals will have to expose at least three players to waivers by Sunday.
Stevenson has already garnered interest as a potential waiver-wire pickup, while Iorio and Frank could also attract other teams’ attention. The Capitals could also opt to trade a player away in hopes of getting some return for an asset they would otherwise lose to waivers, but their roster crunch would likely leave them in an undesirable negotiating position.
Carbery noted that this year’s camp proved unusual in just how many players were competing for relatively few roster spots
“It was a unique (camp),” he said. “We’ve talked about more of an evaluation with five, six, seven guys, instead of two or three that you’re really trying to evaluate, that are going to make the Opening Night roster. I don’t remember it being like that in the past, of there (being) so many guys so close.”
After the Capitals’ final preseason tilt against Columbus, the team will have a day off on Sunday before Monday’s roster deadline. Opening Night is set for Wednesday, October 8 against the Boston Bruins at 7:30 pm.
