The Washington Capitals are dealing with an early cavalcade of roster issues and that was highlighted in their line rushes at Wednesday morning’s practice.
Head coach Peter Laviolette was already guiding his team through long-term injuries to Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson, and Carl Hagelin and now Connor Brown who suffered a lower-body injury agains the Canucks.
The veteran bench boss also has to deal with the one-game suspension levied on Evgeny Kuznetsov. Kuzy is also battling through some sort of injury problem of his own that has kept him out of all Capitals’ practices and morning skates since Monday.
Due to those absences, the Caps were already forced into their first call-up of the season. Beck Malenstyn arrived from the AHL’s Hershey Bears where he has played in both of the team’s wins to start the season. Malenstyn, a 2016 fifth-round draft selection by the Caps, has played in 15 prior NHL games and scored his first NHL goal last season.
Here is how the full team looked via The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir.
Some new #Caps forward lines and pairs for Wednesday:
Ovechkin-Eller-Sheary
Protas-Strome-Oshie
Johansson-McMichael-Mantha
Snively-Dowd-HathawayOrlov-Carlson
Fehervary-Jensen
Gustafsson-TvRExtra: Malenstyn
Not skating: Kuznetsov (suspension) and Brown (lower body)
— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) October 19, 2022
Lars Eller has jumped up two lines to center the de facto top line with Alex Ovechkin. Eller has filled in with Ovi before in a pinch like this and the two have combined quite well in short stints. Over the past three seasons in 223 minutes of five-on-five ice time together, the Caps have seen 51-percent of the shot attempts, 51.1-percent of the expected goals, 50.7-percent of the scoring chances, and 53.7-percent of the high-danger chances.
Both Eller and Ovechkin tallied in the comeback victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday. They’ll be joined by Conor Sheary who had a mid-game promotion to Ovi’s line and ended up scoring his third goal of the young season off an excellent feed from The Great Eight.
It is also clear that both Connor McMichael and Joe Snively will be “forced” into their season debuts due to the ongoing situations. McMichael lined up in his preferred center position next to Anthony Mantha, who has excellent chemistry with the young center. In 49 five-on-five minutes together last season the two saw their line absolutely pulverize the opposition to the tune of 60.3-percent of the shot attempts, 63.5-percent of the expected goals, 62.7-percent of the scoring chances, and 65.6-percent of the high-danger chances.
Snively will be the almost one-for-one replacement of Sheary on the team’s fourth line next to Nic Dowd and Garnet Hathaway. Given the team’s choice to send Axel Jonsson-Fjallby through waivers and eventually lose him to Winnipeg, it appears they may be trying to add a little more offense to that line this season and Snively could provide that in the same vein as Sheary did.
Laviolette has also chosen to change up his defense pairings, which has been incredibly rare during his tenure in charge of the Caps. Dmitry Orlov has been moved up to the top pairing to skate with John Carlson after the latter’s pairing with Martin Fehervary picked up where they left off last season which was not great.
In over 55 minutes skating together so far in the 2022-23 campaign, the pairing of Fehervary and Carlson have combined for a minus-6 shot attempt differential, a minus-five scoring chance differential, and a minus-four high-danger chance differential.
The only pairing to stick together is the third duo made up of former Chicago Blackhawks, Erik Gustafsson and Trevor van Riemsdyk. Gustafsson was the first recipient of the team’s player of the game award this season given out by his teammates and has received praise from his head coach as well.
“He’s been excellent,” Laviolette said earlier this week. “I’ve liked everything about his game. I’ve liked his ability to get out of our end, his first pass, and his elusiveness. I liked his offensive awareness to the game. I like his compete in the battles. He’s been strong defensively for us. There’s really been nothing we haven’t liked about his game. He’s been excellent.”
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
