The Washington Capitals will play the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday in the first of a pair of home preseason games that will act as the final dress rehearsals for the regular season.
The team announced its roster for the matchup on Tuesday and as expected it’s veteran-laden. Led by captain Alex Ovechkin, the almost full-strength Caps will meet the Wings inside of Capital One Arena at 7 pm.
The game will be back on TV and aired on NBC Sports Washington.
The roster for the penultimate game of the preseason tomorrow night against Detroit at Capital One Arena.#CapsWings | #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/5WvbNiMQSO
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 4, 2022
Ovechkin, Darcy Kuemper, John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov, TJ Oshie, and Evgeny Kuznetsov will all skate for just the second time this preseason if they are chosen to don a sweater. Ovechkin and Kuznetsov have been skating on the top line with offseason addition Connor Brown at practice and that line could make its live-action debut against the Wings.
It’s not a guarantee that all of those big forward names get into the game because the team listed Henrik Borgstrom, Aliaksei Protas, and Joe Snively on the roster as well. Head coach Peter Laviolette told the media Tuesday that players from the “taxi squad” group would get into the game on Wednesday.
“I don’t want to discount the five guys that were out here earlier,” Laviolette said. “This is still Training Camp and some of those guys will be in the lineup tomorrow night and they’ll be playing. There are people that are trying to cement their place here. We’re still in an evaluation process – with everybody. The practices are important, the games are important. There’s evaluating going on.”
If Protas were to get a jersey, he will have played in every preseason game thus far (5) and appears to be a serious contender to make the final NHL roster out of camp. He’s played all three forward positions in the four previous games before.
“He continually gets called back up because of his game and the way he is playing the game,” Laviolette said postgame of Protas’ latest appearance. “I thought he had another strong game [Saturday].”
With Charlie Lindgren playing the full 60 minutes against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the team’s last game, it’s likely Kuemper starts and does the same against the Red Wings.
Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong/RMNB
