Washington Capitals Practice Notes: Nic Dowd absent, day to day with lower body injury

The Washington Capitals held a practice on Sunday afternoon at MedStar Capitals Iceplex following their 4-3 overtime loss to the Calgary Flames. As you can imagine, the lineup looked different but not necessarily because it was following a loss.

Fourth line center Nic Dowd was absent and the team said he is day to day with a lower body injury. That’s two centers hurt now with him and Nicklas Backstrom. Lars Eller skated in his place on the fourth line between Carl Hagelin and Garnet Hathaway.

Here were what the lines and defensive pairs look like. If Dowd is not available, this should be the lineup going into tomorrow night’s game against the Ottawa Senators:

Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Mantha-McMichael-Oshie
Sheary-Lapierre-Sprong
Hagelin-Eller-Hathaway
Fehervary-Carlson
Orlov-Jensen
TvR-Schultz

The update head coach Peter Laviolette gave after practice was that he wasn’t sure if Dowd was traveling with the team to Ottawa. He needs to check with the trainers and see what the status is there.

With the Capitals thin on center with the possibility of Dowd being out, it gives the young bucks like Connor McMichael and Hendrix Lapierre more opportunities to shine. Covering the 2019 and 2020 drafts and watching their highlight reels, I was excited to see them get an opportunity such as this but didn’t think it would come this quickly.

Lapierre scored in his NHL debut while McMichael is still on the hunt for his first career NHL goal. McMichael has an excellent opportunity being on a line with T.J. Oshie and Anthony Mantha. Lapierre is familiar with Conor Sheary and having Daniel Sprong on the third line will only make them faster.

The fact the Capitals haven’t lost a regulation game through five games is pretty remarkable. Many people thought the team would take a step back but you couldn’t ask for a better start from this team.