Washington Capitals Practice Notes: Nic Dowd Skates, Will Make Trip

After a legendary Halloween party featuring some epic costumes, the Washington Capitals went back to work on Sunday having a practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex before kicking off their two game road trip to Florida.

After leaving the morning skate on Friday and being ruled out in their game against the Arizona Coyotes with a lower body injury, Nic Dowd was on the ice. He was skating in a dark blue jersey. Usually when player wear non contact jerseys at practice, it’s typically light blue.

Here’s what the lines and defensive pairs looked like per Tom Gulitti of NHL.com

Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Mantha-McMichael-Sprong
Hagelin-Eller-Hathaway
Leason-Lapierre-Sheary
Dowd (dark blue jersey

Fehervary-Carlson
Orlov-Jensen
TvR-Schultz
Cholowski-Irwin

Vanecek
Samsonov

Here are the power play units:

First unit: Carlson, Ovechkin, Wilson, Kuznetsov, Sheary

Second unit: Orlov, Schultz, Sprong, Eller, Mantha

Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette told the media that Nic Dowd will go on the trip with the Capitals where they’ll take on the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers but he doesn’t know if Dowd will play against the Lightning on Monday.

Nicklas Backstrom, who’s recovering from a hip injury will also go with the Caps to Florida but Laviolette pointed out that as of now the plan for him is to continue to do solo work and not practice with the team while there. He’s going on the trip to mostly be around the guys.

Backstrom is eligible to come off of long term injured reserve for Saturday’s home game against the Philadelphia Flyers. We shall see if he is inserted into the lineup.

Laviolette said:

“Everybody’s traveling. Especially because they’ve been a couple one gamers, so to get down there and spend some time, not a bad place to do it in Florida. It’s good to get everybody out going out there. Nick back into the fold, he’s continuing to work behind the scenes to try and get back to us. Just to get him on the road trip and have him around will be really good for our team.”

The Caps take on the Tampa Bay Lightning tomorrow night and the Florida Panthers on Thursday.