Washington Capitals center Nic Dowd returned to the ice with his teammates for practice on Thursday after his wife gave birth to a baby boy, Louie, on Tuesday night. He missed the team’s 4-3 loss to the New York Islanders that afternoon to be with his wife. Defenseman Christian Djoos, who left the Capitals’ 6-4 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday in his second game since being recalled from the AHL’s Hershey Bears with an upper-body injury, did not practice with the team. He is labeled as day-to-day.

Siegs secret Santa gift: a hilariously long twig pic.twitter.com/LvTF5MTGgC

— Washington ☃️ Capitals (@Capitals) January 2, 2020

Goaltender Ilya Samsonov will start at the Hurricanes on Friday (7 PM ET, NBC Sports Washington+ locally or NHL Network nationally) after Braden Holtby allowed 13 goals in his last three games – all losses.

Ilya Samsonov will be in net Friday @ Carolina, per Reirden.

— Samantha Pell (@SamanthaJPell) January 2, 2020

Head coach Todd Reirden decided to start Samsonov at the Hurricanes last week to give them a different look after they beat the Capitals in each of the first two meetings between the two teams. He also doesn’t want Samsonov sitting too long in between starts.

Capitals’ Lines

Capitals at practice today:

Ovechkin-Backstrom-Wilson
Vrana-Kuznetsov-Oshie
Hagelin-Eller-Panik
Leipsic-Dowd-Hathaway

Siegenthaler-Carlson
Orlov-Jensen
Kempny-Gudas

Holtby
Samsonov

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) January 2, 2020

Capitals Today

CAPS TODAY: With points in four of his last five games, Tom Wilson is on pace to pass his career high in both goals and points, set just last season. More info on Wilson and the Caps at https://t.co/HecIC0ECg1 pic.twitter.com/nwiEeTtNlE

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) January 2, 2020

By Harrison Brown