Center Nic Dowd, who has missed the past five games due to a hand injury, skated on the Washington Capitals‘ fourth-line during practice on Monday and appears ready to return when the team hosts the Florida Panthers on Wednesday night (7 PM ET, NBC Sports Washington) but said that he still needs to be cleared. After center Michael Sgarbossa was assigned to the AHL’s Hershey Bears on Sunday, forward Chandler Stephenson centered the third-line with Nicklas Backstrom (lower-body) still out.

Forward Carl Hagelin practiced in a regular jersey but is not eligible to be activated off of long-term injured reserve since it requires that he miss at least 10 games until December 3, when the Capitals visit the San Jose Sharks.

Backstrom was doing some work with conditioning coaching Mark Nemish prior to practice but did not participate. Reirden said earlier this week that he was hopeful that Backstrom could later this week. He has missed the past two games.

According to Isabelle Khurshudyan and Samantha Pell of the Washington Post, the Capitals are interested in playing a game in Russia in the near future. “We’ve talked about different things overseas and we’ve talked about some in Russia or some in Sweden,” team president Dick Patrick said. “We’re not sure; it’s a league decision. They’ve talked about China, too, which would be like an exhibition game. I personally wasn’t too intrigued by that. I think it is just too hard on players during training camp.”

Capitals Lines

Capitals at practice today:

Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Vrana-Eller-Oshie
Panik-Stephenson-Boyd
Malenstyn-Dowd-Leipsic

Kempny-Carlson
Orlov-Jensen
Siegenthaler-Gudas

(Djoos is paired with Hathaway)

Holtby
Samsonov

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) November 25, 2019

Capitals Today

Tune in to News 4 at 4 p.m. on @nbcwashington today for @JummyNBC‘s story on Nicklas Backstrom and his mother’s cancer battle. @MSEFndn‘s auction that included autographed lavender skate blades in her honor raised more than $69,000 this weekend. #CapsFightCancer pic.twitter.com/m0jqNZxW7F

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 25, 2019

By Harrison Brown