The Washington Capitals returned to Southern California following their 8-3 victory over the Sharks in San Jose on Saturday. They close-out their three-game west-coast swing Monday night against the Kings in Los Angeles.
MORNING SKATE
The Capitals held their gameday morning skate at 11:30 AM PT at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Both Nick Jensen (upper body) and Martin Fehervary (lower body) skated, but in blue non-contact jerseys.
Forward lines and defensive pairs at Monday’s morning skate, courtesy of Roman Stubbs/The Washington Post:
Alex Ovechkin — Evgeny Kuznetsov — Tom Wilson
Anthony Mantha — Nicklas Backstrom — T.J. Oshie
Sonny Milano — Dylan Strome — Craig Smith
Conor Sheary — Nic Dowd — Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Rasmus Sandin — Trevor van Riemsdyk
Matt Irwin – Gabriel Carlsson
Gales Alexeyev – Vinny Iorio
Darcy Kuemper
Charlie Lindgren
Extras: Aliaksei Protas, Dylan McIlrath
Darcy Kuemper was the first goaltender off the ice this morning, indicating he will most likely get the start tonight against the Kings.
The Capitals and Kings close-out their season series under the bright lights of Hollywood on Monday night. Washington beat Los Angeles for the sixth time in their past seven attempts by a score of 4-3 at Capital One Arena on October 22. Action from Crypto.com Arena can be seen on NBC Sports Washington in-market or ESPN+ out-of-market starting at 10:30 PM ET.
V.I. = 6
Defenseman Vincent Iorio (1 assist) made his NHL debut on Saturday, while defensemen Rasmus Sandin (3 assists) and Gabriel Carlsson (2 assists) made their Capitals debuts. It marked the first instance in franchise history that three different skaters making their Capitals debuts in the same game each recorded a point (excluding season-opening games).
Iorio recorded his first career NHL point with an assist on an Alex Ovechkin third-period goal, Carlsson recorded two assists for his first career multi-assist and multi-point game and Sandin became the first defenseman and seventh skater in franchise history to record three points in his first game with Washington. [MORE HERE]
STAT OF THE DAY
Today’s stat of the day plots each and every Capitals game played to date (64 games). It includes the opposition’s winning percentage, the final score for each team, the Capitals expected goals for percentage (xGF%) for the game and the ultimate game score (defined and presented here) for each game. [Click to enlarge]
The Capitals game score provides a good visual for identifying highs and lows for the Capitals throughout the season.
GAME SCORE = [xGF%(game) X Opp. win%] – 25
The game score helps identify those games in which the Capitals played well but lost and those games in which they performed poorly but pulled out a win. It also considers strength of opposition when evaluating the Capitals performance.
[The statistics used in this post are courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, MoneyPuck 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
Alexander Suzdalev celebrated his 19th birthday on Sunday. He marked the occasion by scoring his 36th goal of the season.
Alexander Suzdalev, on his 19th birthday, lasers one from a sharp angle, for his 36th goal of the season. #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/nNOhL8d9QO
— Capitals Prospects (@jon_m_sorensen) March 5, 2023
Suzdalev scored the game winner Saturday night against the Red Deer Rebels. It was his second overtime game winner of the season.
Suz Your Daddy! Alexander Suzdalev wins it for Regina in overtime! (nice pass by that Bedard guy). It’s Suzdalev’s 35th goal of the season and second overtime game winner. #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/hpchDCIK3e
— Capitals Prospects (@jon_m_sorensen) March 5, 2023
Suzdalev met with the Regina media following Sunday night’s game against the Saskatoon Blades.
Ryan Hofer, who signed an energy-level contract with the Capitals on Wednesday, returned to scoresheet on Friday night.
Two days after signing an NHL Contract with the @Capitals, Hof is back to work 🔥 pic.twitter.com/flX3nKhjj0
— Kamloops Blazers (@blazerhockey) March 4, 2023
Bogdan Trineyev (#88) recorded the 2nd assist on Dynamo’s first goal today. This was game 2 of their first round KHL playoff series against Nizhny Novgorod. Trineyev was playing for the Bears last spring just days after his KHL season concluded.
Nice work along the boards by Bogdan Trineyev (#88), gets the 2nd assist on Dynamo’s first goal. This is game 2 of their first round KHL playoff series against Nizhny Novgorod. Trineyev was playing for the Bears last spring just days after his KHL season concluded. #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/vH1E1onfNt
— Capitals Prospects (@jon_m_sorensen) March 6, 2023
Bears head coach Todd Nelson said he was keeping tabs on Vinny Iorio and Gabriel Carlsson’s stats for Caps on Saturday night, during the Bears game. “Don’t worry, I was keeping tabs on the game. I think Carly, I’m not sure what he finished, but he was a +3 at one point.”
SHAVINGS
- The bidding war for the Ottawa Senators officially begins [Ottawa Sun]
- And finally, Dmitry Orlov was the NHL’s first star of the week.
The NHL’s 3 stars of the past week:
⭐️ Dmitry Orlov
⭐️⭐️ Claude Giroux
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Filip Gustavsson— David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) March 6, 2023
LA is low key really good, especially now that they’ve improved their goaltending. This should be a good challenge for all those young defence men, definitely a major step up from San Jose.
Not suggesting we sign him, but I hope someone gives Craig Smith a contract next year. He’s another Sheary type, works hard every shift with a bit of a scoring touch.
This is true. “Low key” is a good way to put it. LA is a good team, top-10 in a number of possession metrics. Hopefully we get Copley, as I’m sure our book on his the best available.
The 4th line is very interesting. Don”t like Nicky as the #2 center, maybe the #3, but not the #2. Sad to say but at this point in his career there wasn’t much difference between Nicky and Eller. Why not try Smith at #3 Center and let Nicky play a RW on the 3rd line? At this point in the season what has anyone have to lose by trying a different line especially as that is what the HC has done all season. Wonder why he broke up Carlsson and Iorio as they played well on Saturday; seems like a move just to say see I did something.
I’m hoping Backstrom can continue to recover from his surgery. He’s still got his hockey smarts and skills, but I’m not sure he’s recovered far enough to be better than Eller on a 3rd or 4th line. But hopefully over the summer he continues to get back closer to what he was physically.
The dee pairs were in flux the whole game. Iorio played a bit with Sandin and a bunch with Alexyev. I’m just glad Iorio is still in the lineup instead of McIlrath. Hope they send McIlrath back to hershey for a bit and let Iorio get in 9 games. And probably some in press box. But want to see him get as many games as possible without losing his waiver exemption or a year of his ELC.
Testing, testing, DWG. Just checking to see if we have fixed your e-mail issue.
Nope. Still not getting email alerts. I even tried deleting the website portion of who I am. It was a weird link with gravitar in it. I just come back occasionally to check.
I once was not getting notifications of replies to my posts. Jon couldn’t find anything wrong. I think after I went out to WordPress and did something there I get all comments not just replies.
Glad to see that Dowd is playing and didn’t get hurt too bad at the end of the Sharks game. Nice to see Craig Smith have a good day against the Sharks also. He has surprised me and been fitting in pretty good with the Caps. The Bruin fans have wanted him out for 2 seasons now I think because his scoring is down and his pay is high than they’d like, but he has fit in well here.