The Washington Capitals held their gameday morning skate at 11:30AM this morning at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. They wrap-up their two-game set with the Penguins and four-game road trip tonight before heading home in advance of their home opener against the Buffalo Sabres on Friday night. Puck drop against the Penguins tonight is set for 7:07 PM.
Capitals lines at morning skate:
TJ Oshie drops from the top line to the third line on the right side. Daniel Sprong moves for the left side of the third line to the right side of the second line. Richard Panik stays on the third line but moves from the right side to the left side.
Interesting lines at AM skate today for the Capitals:
Ovechkin-Backstrom-Wilson
Vrana-Kuznetsov-Sprong
Panik-Eller-Oshie
Hagelin-Dowd-HathawayOrlov-Carlson
Dillon-Schultz
Chara-Jensen— Samantha Pell (@SamanthaJPell) January 19, 2021
Laviolette confirmed that Vitek Vanecek will start in goal for the Capitals.
Penguins lines at morning skate:
The Penguins held an optional morning skate this morning, so no lines are available. The lines from yesterday’s Penguins practice:
Forwards:
Guentzel-Crosby-Kapanen
Zucker-Malkin-Rust
McCann-Jankowski-Tanev
Rodrigues/Lafferty-Blueger-Sceviour
Defense:
Dumoulin – Letang
Pettersson – Marino
Riikola – Ruhwedel
Kasperi Kapenen will play in his first game of the season for the Penguins. He missed the first three games of the season due to Visa issues and quarantine for COVID-19.
That’s Zach-Aston Reese, who is participating in the Penguins’ optional game-day skate. pic.twitter.com/tUzabl88Gi
— Dave Molinari (@MolinariPGH) January 19, 2021
Casey DeSmith will start in goal for Penguins. Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan confirmed that Kapanen will also play.
Pens coach Mike Sullivan says Casey DeSmith will start in net again vs. Capitals tonight.
Kasperi Kapanen will play and make his Penguins debut.
— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) January 19, 2021
SHAVINGS
- The Capitals are 12-8-5 against the Penguins since 2014-15.
- The Capitals have killed 12 of their 13 penalties this season (92.3 kill percentage), tied for the third-most killed penalties in the NHL.
- Washington’s 92.3 penalty kill percentage ranks seventh in the NHL, however, their 13 penalties are tied for the second-most among teams ranked in the top-10 in penalty kill percentage.
- Zdeno Chara leads all Capitals players with 11:05 penalty kill minutes this season, which also ranks 25th in the NHL.
- Carl Hagelin leads all Capitals forwards with 10:51 penalty kill minutes and ranks seventh in the NHL among forwards.
Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins Game Notes
By Jon Sorensen
Crazy lines, but Lava is still learning what he has. If we see this in March we have issues.
There is a need for scoring on the 3rd line and Oshie can skate anywhere.
There is a need, although, he just might wanted to get a look at how Oshie looks there. There’s a chance he’s in the top 6 tonight anyway.
Yep. It’s early, these are still essentially pre-season games. I’m sure we’ll see many more line jumbles in the coming games.
Dont like Sprong on the 2nd
He can’t play bottom 6/defense. Really tough to find a spot for him because of his inability to back check and play defense, a requirement for bottom six.