For the first time this season, the Caps are playing in Philly. For the first time this season, the Caps are playing in front of fans; a crowd of approximately 3,100 is being excpected at Wells Fargo Center tonight. And for the first time this season, the Caps are entering a game after a blowout loss in their previous outing.
The Flyers are coming back from a five-game road trip of their own, a journey that ended with a 4-3 loss to the Penguins on the other side of the state on Saturday afternoon. That loss left the Flyers settling for a 3-2-0 outcome on their trip, and the Caps are aiming to go one better tonight.
A 3-2 road trip is nice, but it’s not a 4-1 road trip.
“There’s a big difference,” says Caps defenseman John Carlson of the difference between possible overall outcomes to the trip after tonight’s finale. “After that [weeklong] break [in early February] we’re at the point now where we’re playing a lot of games as well, so that’s not easy on the road. It’s not that the travel is that difficult, but not having the amenities of being at home or being in your own facilities and all that, I think it’s going to be a big momentum shift for us if we can put out a great, great effort. I know they’re going to be coming in and wanting to bounce back themselves, so we’ve got to match that intensity and overcome it, and it’ll be nice to play in front of a few fans, too.”
Most importantly, the Caps are looking to get back to playing their to their capability over a full 60 minutes and picking up points again after a dismal second period spelled the end of their four-game winning streak on Friday.
“I think there have been some good responses this year to games that I don’t think have been some of our best,” says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. That happens through the course of any year – short year, long year, it doesn’t matter. And our guys have shown to have a good bounce back to them. There is a veteran team in there, guys who have won a lot of games, and probably have an honest realization when it’s not their night. And from the conversations [Saturday] I think that was at the forefront, that the guys realized that wasn’t their night.
“And at that point, you can move on. If they know that it wasn’t good enough, then they’ll be there’ll be, they’ll be ready to play tonight and at that point I think the understanding is already in the room. I think guys understood where we were, that we weren’t that sharp, that we got outdone, we were not first in a lot of areas; we were second, we were reaching, and we were on our heels. And when that happens, you’re not going to like the game. I think we’ll all just kind of put it behind us and look to fix it tonight, play a better game.”
Rough Justice – Once again, the Caps find themselves facing a significant portion of time without top six right wing Tom Wilson in their lineup. In the wake of an unpenalized hit on Bruins blueliner Brandon Carlo in Boston on Friday night, the NHL’s Department of Player Safety has suspended Wilson for seven games, starting with Sunday’s tilt against the Flyers.
As things stand now, Wilson will be eligible to return on March 20, when the Caps take on the New York Rangers at Capital One Arena in the second of a set of back-to-back games with the Blueshirts.
Laviolette spoke eloquently and at length on the hit and its repercussions after the Caps’ morning skate on Sunday.
“First,” says Laviolette, “I was happy to see Brandon Carlo go back to his team and hopefully he moves forward. Nobody wants to see anybody get injured. I’ve got a team that I coach and I’ve got kids that play the game, and hockey is at times a fast and violent sport. Physical contact is allowed. And so – as I’m sure our guys were and everybody around the league – nobody wants to see anybody get hurt, so I was happy to hear that.
“Secondly, after 20 years of arguing with referees on the bench or not agreeing with something that’s done, I don’t make the rules. The rules are the rules, and things get handed down and whether I agree with them or not is irrelevant. I think the officials on a nightly basis do a really good job of officiating the game and watching over the players to have a safe game, to have a game that’s a good game. And I think the league does the same thing. Whether I agree with it or not, these are the decisions that are made and now we’re left to deal with it.
“With regard to [the hit] itself, I stated what I did [Saturday] and I stand by that. There was a hit there was made – player to player, looking at each other, and the player had the puck. And it was a forceful hit. You mentioned the seven games; it’s not about that, it’s whether or not the hit is suspendable. And so we will now deal with the repercussions of having Tom out of the lineup for seven games, but I certainly think that this will open things up to any hit that is forceful and impactful with a player that has the puck.
“Using the terminology under the boarding [rule], most players are somewhat defenseless when they have the puck and they’re on the boards. They see things coming at them, but they have to deal with the puck they have to hang on to it, or they have to make a play. I watched some videos [Saturday] of just some of the best hits around the league, and there were so many of these hits, and they may have caused injury, or maybe they didn’t. But the hit itself – now that it’s a suspendable hit – is something that we’ll try to talk to our players about and certainly educate [them] a little bit. But up until this point, I think that everybody thought that hitting somebody square up with the puck was a hit that was [allowed] in the game.
“We’ve got to move past it without Tom right now for seven games, and we got to get ready to win a game tonight.”
Wilson’s suspension takes him out of action for 12.5 percent of the 2020-21 regular season and it is the equivalent of a 10-game suspension in an 82-game campaign. Because Wilson is a critical cog on both special teams in addition to being a top six winger, his responsibilities will need to be spread around to a few players in his absence.
“I think you try to replace some of the pieces,” says Laviolette of replacing Wilson, “get some physicality from other guys, get some scoring from other guys, and we’ve got to fill a penalty-killing piece and we’ve got to fill a power-play piece. So I don’t if one guy does. This type of player – a power forward – they’re not as common I don’t think in the game anymore as maybe they were. Even 10 years ago or 20 years ago, if you had a good power forward you were pretty fortunate, and I think Tom is a good one.
“And so I don’t know exactly how you replace the whole thing, but I know that there’s opportunity now for somebody on the penalty kill, and there’s opportunity for somebody on the power play.”
With Wilson out of the lineup, the Caps will turn to Daniel Sprong to fill his spot in the lineup. Last weekend in New Jersey, Sprong stepped into the lineup on short notice when Evgeny Kuznetsov was unable to play a pair of games in New Jersey. Last Saturday against the Devils, Sprong scored in the first period of his first game back in the lineup after an absence of seven games.
“Sprong draws into the lineup tonight,” says Laviolette. “I thought was playing really well. We haven’t seen him in a little bit, but that is not necessarily a fault of his. We’ve just been caught with numbers that have been on our side, and he now gets a chance to draw back into the lineup. He is playing with [Jakub] Vrana and [Evgeny] Kuznetsov, and I think it was maybe game four – I can’t remember; I think game four – that they were together as a line and they were really good. Obviously we have to adjust our lines now a little bit, and so we’re going to put that line back together because they were a good line before. There is some familiarity now with all the other lines as well, and so we’ll go like this tonight and see how it goes, but certainly a big piece coming out of the lineup.”
In The Nets – Ilya Samsonov will be in goal for Washington on Sunday night against the Flyers, making his fourth start of the season and first in a week. Samsonov did see some action on Friday night in Boston in a relief role, stopping sic of the seven shots he faced in just over 24 minutes of work.
Samsonov’s season was sidetracked early; he landed on the League’s “unavailable due to COVID protocol list” in mid-January, and went six weeks between NHL starts, though he did see action in four AHL contests during that span of time.
He returned to NHL action last Sunday afternoon in New Jersey, stopping 19 of 21 shots in a 3-2 win over the Devils. Samsonov’s only career appearance against Philadelphia came in a 12-minute relief outing some 13 months ago. He stopped the only shot he faced in that appearance. On the season, Samsonov is 2-0-1 with a 2.87 GAA and an .877 save pct.
Since Brian Elliott was in the nets for the Flyers on Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh, Carter Hart will get the call on Sunday against the Capitals.
Hart has started only two of Philly’s last six games, shutting out the Sabres on 28 shots in Buffalo last Sunday and yielding five goals on 27 shots in a 5-2 loss to the Pens in Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
Lifetime against the Capitals, Hart is 2-1-1 with a 2.71 GAA and a .917 save pct. in four appearances.
All Lined Up – Here is how we expect the Capitals and the Flyers to look on Sunday night in Philadelphia:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 19-Backstrom, 77-Oshie
13-Vrana, 92-Kuznetsov, 10-Sprong
73-Sheary, 20-Eller, 14-Panik
62-Hagelin, 26-Dowd, 21-Hathaway
Defensemen
4-Dillon, 74-Carlson
9-Orlov, 2-Schultz
33-Chara, 3-Jensen
Goaltenders
30-Samsonov
41-Vanecek
Out
6-Kempny (Achilles’ tendon)
43-Wilson (League suspension)
Extras
34-Siegenthaler
57-van Riemsdyk
Taxi Squad
16-Maillet (F)
28-Carr (F)
31-Anderson (G)
64-Pinho (F)
PHILADELPHIA
Forwards
25-van Riemsdyk, 14-Couturier, 86-Farabee
21-Laughton, 13-Hayes, 11-Konecny
23-Lindblom, 28-Giroux, 62-Aube-Kubel
12-Raffl, 19-Patrick, 93-Voracek
Defensemen
9-Provorov, 61-Braun
6-Sanheim, 5-Myers
8-Hagg, 53-Gostisbehere
Goaltenders
79-Hart
37-Elliott
Out
48-Frost (shoulder)
Extras
82-Bunnaman