The Washington Capitals returned to work Sunday morning following their 3-2 loss to the Arizona Coyotes Saturday night at Capital One Arena. The team held practice at 11:30 AM at MedStar Capitals Iceplex.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel, claimed off waivers on Saturday, made his first appearance at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. Dmitry Orlov, who was injured in last night’s game, did not participate in practice. He is listed “day to day”, per coach Laviolette. John Carlson, who was injured in the Nashville game, skated in a non-contact jersey.
Here’s John Carlson in gear wearing the blue non-contact jersey pic.twitter.com/jWnwx2hORL
— Matt Weyrich (@ByMattWeyrich) November 6, 2022
The team will hold a morning skate on Monday before they face the Edmonton Oilers Monday night.
GREATEST 8
Ovechkin scored his 787th career goal passing Gordie Howe for the most goals scored by a player with a single franchise (Howe: 786 goals in 1,687 games played with Detroit).
Another angle of Alex Ovechkin’s historic goal from last night. This particular fan said he flew 3,000 miles for last night’s game.
And I’ll never forget it pic.twitter.com/zwTyJmtqXu
— Tyler (@BC_2DC) November 6, 2022
Ovechkin, who scored his 787th goal in his 1,287th career game with Washington, eclipsed Howe’s mark in 400 fewer games. Ovechkin now sits 15 goals shy of passing Howe (801) for second place on the NHL’s all-time goals list.
A father and son Sunday on the ice pic.twitter.com/ZjFvU0GFnn
— Al Koken (@RealSmokinAl) November 6, 2022
Ovechkin and son Sergei got in a little work following the team’s practice on Sunday.
Alex Ovechkin and Ovi Jr. on the ice together as practice wraps up pic.twitter.com/ew7opE4wYx
— Matt Weyrich (@ByMattWeyrich) November 6, 2022
STAT OF THE DAY – IMPROVING EXPECTATIONS
Despite the loss, the Capitals turned in their best possession numbers of the season on Saturday night. In fact, the numbers have shown general improvement over the last several games.
While the improvement in offensive stats hasn’t directly aligned with wins, the improvement is more encouraging over the long term.
The team has climbed from 29th in the league to 25th in the league over the past few games, so the number will be interesting to watch over the next few games.
DOWN ON THE FARM
Clay Stevenson stopped 38 of 40 (.950) and was named the first star of the game for the South Carolina Stingrays on Saturday night.
#ALLCAPS Clay Stevenson stopped 38 of 40 for a .950 sv% – was named first star of the game. https://t.co/m2fuMOxTCI
— Capitals Prospects (@jon_m_sorensen) November 6, 2022
Mitchell Gibson stopped all shots he faced last night in Harvard’s 4-0 win over Yale. He’s now stopped 27 of 29 in two games so far this season for a .931 sv%.
Alexander Suzdalev notched his seventh goal of the season Saturday night against the Swift Current Broncos.
Alexander Suzdalev with his 7th of the season. 5th on the PP. #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/7gLgv3oHTT
— Capitals Prospects (@jon_m_sorensen) November 6, 2022
Moments later Suzdalev would make a nice move along the boards to set up an attempt at The Michigan. He’s tried several times this season but has yet to convert.
Alexander Suzdalev with a nice move to attempt The Michigan. #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/uouOIBrgQr
— Capitals Prospects (@jon_m_sorensen) November 6, 2022
As we reported last night, Capitals first round draft pick Ivan Miroshnichenko has been cleared to return to game action. He made his first start of the season on Sunday, and logged 15 minutes of ice time.
The Capitals next host the Edmonton Oilers on Monday at Capital One Arena. Puck drop is set for 8PM.
By Jon Sorensen
Clay looked good. I had trouble hearing the Rays broadcast so listened to the opposition and they were really praising him by the end of the game.
All reports from last night are very encouraging. I predicted in July he will challenge for a spot in Hershey quickly. Only issue, both netminders in Hershey are playing extremely well. Oh, and this is a test, did you receive response email notification?
The Caps have traditionally had a very strong goalie pipeline all the way down to the Rays. Sammy was the exception.
I discovered I had a WordPress logon so went out there and changed a few things and now everything is coming through. Thanks for asking. Glad it’s resolved even if I still don’t know why it happened in the first place. I love reading the entire conversations, not just the articles and not getting notified was really a downer.
Oh good, I gave it a lot of thought and couldn’t figure it out. Just glad we got it ironed out. It’s great to have you contribute to the daily narrative.
I know I got a bit pushy but since nothing else on my end was failing, I didn’t want to start messing things up here until I knew that nothing had changed at your end. Then I remembered my WordPress logon.
The boxes I see below have changed but that may be due to what I changed in my WordPress profile.
Might have been a software update at one end or the other. I hate software updates. Not that they don’t sometimes improve things, but too many come with unwanted side effects.
Anyway, thanks again for your help.
I hear Aube-Kuble will wear #96, continuing in the Millennial Generation trend of wearing one’s birth year as their number.