The Washington Capitals host the high-flying New Jersey Devils tonight at Capital One Arena, with puck drop set for just after 7PM ET. The team will then practice again on Friday before departing for New York in advance of their tilts with the Islanders on Saturday and the Rangers on Tuesday.
MORNING SKATE
The Capitals held an “optional” gameday morning skate Thursday morning at 10:30 AM at MedStar Capitals Iceplex.
Nick Jensen and Martin Fehervary both donned regular (full contact) jerseys at morning skate. Jensen was wearing a blue non-contact jersey yesterday and Laviolette said he’d most likely miss tonight’s game. John Carlson also skated again in a non-contact jersey.
The Capitals forward lines and defensive pairs at Wednesday’s practice:
Alex Ovechkin — Evgeny Kuznetsov — Anthony Mantha
Sonny Milano — Nicklas Backstrom — Tom Wilson
Conor Sheary — Dylan Strome — T.J. Oshie
Aliaksei Protas — Nic Dowd — Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Rasmus Sandin — Trevor van Riemsdyk
Alex Alexeyev – Martin Fehervary
Matt Irwin – Gabriel Carlsson
Extras: Vinny Iorio, John Carlson, Nick Jensen
Craig Smith returned from his quick trip to Boston to fetch his belongings and figures to be in the lineup tonight.
The Capitals host the New Jersey Devils tonight at Capital One Arena for the third of four meetings between the teams this season. Washington (1-1-0) and New Jersey (1-1-0) have split the season series to date, with the Capitals defeating the Devils 6-3 in Newark on Oct. 24 and the Devils topping the Capitals 5-1 on Nov. 26.
Akira Schmid is in the starter’s net at Devils morning skate in Washington.
Vitek Vanecek is in other net.
Obviously, nothing official, but doesn’t look right now like the Vitek will play in his DC return.
— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) March 9, 2023
The Capitals have a record of 26-4-3 (.833 points percentage) in their last 33 games against New Jersey dating back to the 2015-16 season and have earned at least one point in seven-straight home games versus the Devils (6-0-1). [MORE HERE]
STAT OF THE DAY – DIFFERENCES IN EXPECTATIONS
Today’s stat of the day plots the Capitals rolling expected goals differential (xGF – xGA) for the season so far. (65 games).
After the well-documented but hard to explain, poor start to the season, the Capitals rebounded and crossed into the positive in early December and have remained in the positive ever since. However, the last two games has seen the Capitals positive differential cut in half.
[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
Ethen Frank sat for an extended interview with Allie Berube of ABC27. The full interview, well worth the 10 minutes for any ‘Frankophile’, can be watched HERE.
Ethen Frank leads @TheHersheyBears in goals scored, named an AHL All-Star & earned a two-way contract with the Caps in just his first full AHL season.
Check out our one-on-one interview with the rookie ⬇️@HersheyBearsBC | @efrank_98https://t.co/6fOKPaB4yy pic.twitter.com/4KDLnMdq15
— Allie Berube (@allieberube) March 9, 2023
The National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) announced its 2022-23 All-Rookie Team on Tuesday, with five different teams represented on the six-man squad. Capitals defensive prospect Joaquim Lemay and fellow Nebraska-Omaha blueliner Jacob Guevin were the two defensemen selected to this years team. [MORE HERE]
SHAVINGS
- Elliott Friedman’s 32 Thoughts. [Sportsnet]
- According to David Pagnotta, the NHL games in Australia in Sept are moving ahead. An announcement is expected soon. The Bruins will be going to play pre-season games with LA, which will take place at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.
- Ottawa Senators sale draws nine bids, some north of $900 million [Sportico]