The Washington Capitals made their way westward on Wednesday in advance of their tilt with the Arizona Coyotes tonight in Tempe, Arizona. Puck drop from the miniaturized Mullet Arena is set for a late, but manageable 9:00 PM ET.
The lineup is largely the same as the last game against the Minnesota Wild. The forward lines and defensive pairs at “morning” skate, courtesy of Samantha Pell/Washington Post:
Alex Ovechkin — Dylan Strome — Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Sonny Milano — Nicklas Backstrom — Tom Wilson
Conor Sheary — Lars Eller — T.J. Oshie
Marcus Johansson — Evgeny Kuznetsov — Garnet Hathaway
Erik Gustafsson — Trevor van Riemsdyk
Dmitry Orlov — Nick Jensen
Alex Alexeyev — Martin Fehervary
Charlie Lindgren
Darcy Kuemper
Extras: Right-wing Anthony Mantha, forward Aliaksei Protas and defenseman Matt Irwin
Injuries: Left-wing Carl Hagelin (hip), right-wing Connor Brown (ACL), defenseman John Carlson (upper body), and center Nic Dowd (lower body)
YOTES
The Capitals begin a three-game road trip tonight when they visit the Arizona Coyotes at Mullett Arena for the second of two meetings between the teams this season. Washington has a record of 37-31-12-4 all-time versus the Coyotes. More here.
Hi from Mullet Arena for Capitals morning skate! pic.twitter.com/MCBcE0WMkc
— Samantha Pell (@SamanthaJPell) January 19, 2023
The Capitals have won eight of their last nine road games (8-1-0) dating back to Dec. 5, including seven-straight from Dec. 5 to Jan. 5, which established a new franchise record. Since Dec. 5, the Capitals have outscored opponents 39-20 (4.33 GF/GP, 2.22 GA/GP) on the road. More here.
STAT OF THE DAY – EXPECTED GOALS DIFFERENTIAL
We’ve mentioned the expected goals metric quite a bit this season, as in season’s past. I should mention that if you need a mid-season refresher on the stat, we have a definition in our NHL Analytics Glossary. Of course, if you ever have any questions you can always send us a message in the comments or via e-mail.
The Capitals have risen from a season low of -5.12 in mid-November and at the bottom of the league to +6.78 expected goals differential. That’s now good enough for 13th-best in the league.
[The statistics used in this post are courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and the NoVa Caps Advanced Analytics Model (NCAAM). If you’d like to learn more about the statistical terms used in this post, please check out our NHL Analytics Glossary]
DOWN ON THE FARM
Ludwig Persson had a nice assist for BIK Karlskoga in last night’s HockeyAllsvenskan action.
David Lilja 🚨
Ludwig Persson 🍎#Hockeyallsvenskan #bikkarlskoga #allcaps
🎥 C More pic.twitter.com/Mx5gDCDUdV— SwehockeyGIFs (@swehockeygifs) January 18, 2023
Oskar Magnusson had a redirect for a tally for AIK, also in HockeyAllsvenskan action last night.
Oskar Magnusson with the redirect for the tally in last night’s HockeyAllsvenskan action. He has 5g, 9a in 34 games played this season. #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/mXNa9oj4BR
— Capitals Prospects (@jon_m_sorensen) January 19, 2023
Bogdan Trineyev scored his second career KHL goal today. He continues to skate with Dynamo’s KHL club and seems to have found a steady starting spot at left wing on the second line.
Bogdan Trineyev with his 2nd goal of the season for KHL Dynamo. Remains starting at left wing on the second line. #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/U6eyHZ0cCp
— Capitals Prospects (@jon_m_sorensen) January 19, 2023
A solid season in the KHL will have him primed for a return trip to Hershey this fall.
SHAVINGS
And finally, awesome artwork from “Falling In Sand”:
#ALLCAPS [🎨: @fallinginsand] pic.twitter.com/iLcXllLMmj
— #ALLCAPS (@JonItBe) January 19, 2023
Wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round.
Well, only one change today. I guess that’s moving in the right direction?
What a blunder with Mantha. It would have been easier to not make that trade, not extend Vrana, and buy out/trade Panik, saving money/picks.
As time passes, it’s becoming pretty clear that MacLellan and Yzerman got together and said, “look, we both have a problem player, what do you say we…”
Yes, and he got fleeced. Yzerman made his own mistake.
Where I stand, it looks eerily similar on both ends.
I understand trying things out to see what you have, you need to give each iteration more than one game to glean any insight
When it comes to trades….sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes its a tie. The Mantha trade is a BIG tie. Hopefully they can move Mantha and Eller and not have to give up other assets and receive a mid pick for either of them. Hopefully someone will be desperate enough at the trade deadline to take both. On the plus side would be nice to see Strome resigned for 5 years at least. Sad to say this but with the salary caps mismanagement just to keep a group of players together a player like Orlov may not be here next year. For the sake of keeping Eller the GM traded away Stephenson who has better stats and makes less than Eller. Maybe the GM should start to look at age and salary of players and keep the younger ones and go through growing pains rather than trade all the younger players just to keep older high priced players. Somehow his way of trading players does not work in the favor of this team getting better. I guess I have no faith in the GM to make trades that actually help this team. I believe that he makes trades to keep older players not improve this team!
“A Big Tie” is about the best description I’ve heard to date. Fans (on both sides) are very concerned with “winning the trade” which I get. I think the extra first round draft pick is the killer for me, a prospects lover.
I still think all the line changes right now are Caps management trying to finalize who gets offered up to trade.