Washington Capitals: Breaking down third preseason game against Flyers

The Washington Capitals are back in action for their third game of the preseason and first road contest. They are still in search of their first win (0-1-1) after dropping two home contests. They’ll look to get back in the win column tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Here is what the lineup will look like:

Forwards
Daniel Sprong
Garnet Hathaway
Michael Sgarbossa
Nic Dowd
Anthony Mantha
Garrett Pilon
Tom Wilson
Axel Jonsson-Fjallby
Brett Leason
Aliaksei Protas
Carl Hagelin
Conor Sheary
Joe Snively
Evgeny Kuznetsov

Defensemen
Justin Schultz
Nick Jensen
Michal Kempny
Alex Alexeyev
Martin Fehervary
Tobias Geisser
Trevor Van Riemsdyk

Goaltenders
Pheonix Copley
Ilya Samosnov

We will not see Connor McMichael nor Hendrix Lapierre but everyone deserves a night off including two rookies trying to make the roster. Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette told the media after Friday’s training camp practice that the plan was for either Ilya Samsonov or Vitek Vanecek to play the entire game in goal. Looks like they are going with Samsonov tonight.

Samsonov made his 2021-22 preseason debut in Wednesday night’s loss against the New Jersey Devils, coming into the game in the third period. He made six saves on eight shots. Samsonov has a 5-0-0 record in six career games against Philadelphia, tied for the most wins he has against a single opponent. The others are five wins against the Devils and New York islanders.

All five of Samsonov’s victories against the Flyers came last season where he posted a 2.40 goals against average and a .924 save percentage. In 45 career NHL games, Samsonov has a 29-10-3 record and a 19-3-2 record on the road. Since the start of the 2019-20 season, Samsonov’s 19 road wins rank 12th in the NHL and are the most among goaltenders with fewer than 30 road games played.

Tonight we’ll see the return of the fourth line of Carl Hagelin, Nic Dowd, and Garnet Hathaway. Last season, the trio were the only forwards to appear in all 56 games of the season, skating a total of 517:43 together at five on five. That is the most of any Capitals line combination last season.

Dowd set a career high in goals last season and his 0.20 goals per game rating doubled his goals per game rating entering the season (0.10 in his career). Hathaway recorded 18 points last season with six goals and 12 assists, which was one shy of his career high 19 that he set in 2018-19 playing in 76 games for the Calgary Flames.

Puck drop is at 7 p.m. from the Wells Fargo Center and you can catch the game on NBC Sports Washington.