The Washington Capitals will have their primary goaltending tandem back as soon as Saturday night.
Head coach Spencer Carbery revealed after Friday’s practice that Charlie Lindgren will be joining the team on their upcoming two-game road trip to play the Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota Wild. Lindgren has missed the past three games with an upper-body injury and was placed on injured reserve last weekend.
“Yeah, we’ll find out tomorrow, but [Lindgren is] trending in the right direction,” Carbery said. “He will travel, yes. We just won’t activate him until we’re 1,000 percent sure.”
Lindgren has been back on the ice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex for the past few days, starting with a short skate on Wednesday. The 31-year-old netminder has not played since he made 23 saves in a 7-1 win against the San Jose Sharks last week.
In nine appearances this season, Lindgren is 5-3-1 with a 2.90 goals-against average, a .893 save percentage, and one shutout. According to MoneyPuck, he has saved 6.7 more goals than expected, which ranks 25th best among all NHL goalies.
The Capitals still have goaltender Garin Bjorklund up from the AHL’s Hershey Bears, and he served as Logan Thompson’s backup against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night. The Bears, who are currently sporting a tandem of Clay Stevenson and Mitch Gibson, have a home back-to-back this weekend against the Providence Bruins and Charlotte Checkers.
While Lindgren did skate on Friday morning, the Capitals practiced without Martin Fehervary, John Carlson, and Alex Ovechkin. The team announced that all three were taking maintenance days after playing the Hurricanes the night before.
Fehervary did briefly head down the locker room tunnel after a hit from Andrei Svechnikov during Thursday night’s loss. He ultimately returned and finished with 16:31 of ice time.
“[Fehervary] should be okay, but maintenance day for him, John, O,” Carbery said.
The Capitals will take on the Jets on Saturday night and then have two days off before visiting the Wild on Tuesday night. Logan Thompson could start for the Caps in both games, and the team does not have another set of back-to-back games until the end of next week.
