Washington Capitals hockey returns to your TVs tonight! It also returns to the District.
The Washington Capitals will open the preseason tonight against the Chicago Blackhawks at Capital One Arena. Puck drop is at 7 p.m. and you can catch the game on NBC Sports Washington. Both teams split the two-game regular season series last season with each club winning on their home ice.
Pheonix Copley will get the start in goal for the Capitals while Ilya Samsonov will be the backup. Brendan Leipsic and Garnet Hathaway, two free agents who signed with Washington over the summer, will make their Capitals debuts.
Perhaps the biggest storyline will be getting to watch Joe Snively, a prospect who grew up in local Herndon, VA and played with the Little Caps during his youth.
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Last year he was with his buddies outside of Capital One Arena watching the team win the Stanley Cup. Less than a year later, the Capitals signed him after he finished his senior season at Yale.
Last season, Snively scored 15 goals and 21 assists for 36 points in 33 games with Yale, including a college career-high five power play goals. Per the Caps, he led Yale in points all four seasons and recorded 139 points (58 goals, 81 assists) in 129 NCAA games. Snively was nominated for the Hobey Baker Award which goes to the top college hockey player.
After signing with the Caps, Snively appeared in nine games and added two goals and five assists. After getting his hockey gloves signed by Alex Ovechkin as a kid at the dentist, now he’s playing in the same arena the Great 8 wows the crowd nightly.
Capitals forward Joe Snively, a native of Herndon, Va., will be making his preseason debut tomorrow night against the Chicago Blackhawks. Snively was a member of the Little Caps program, who play at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. pic.twitter.com/PnkI388BKP
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) September 15, 2019
Also making his preseason debut will be top Capitals draft pick Connor McMichael after he turned in a solid performance at the team’s Prospect Showcase last week. You’ll also see third-rounder Aliaksei (Alexei) Protas as well as defensemen Bobby Nardella.
As far as regular guys go, Chandler Stephenson and Travis Boyd will both need good games tonight if they want to make the opening night roster and make things complicated for general manager Brian MacLellan to trim the roster to get under the salary cap.
Tom Wilson will also be on the ice with the forwards and rounding out that group will be Nic Dowd, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, Beck Malenstyn, Shane Gersich, Liam O’Brien and Damien Riat.
The defense will also feature Nick Jensen, Lucas Johansen, Christian Djoos, Jonas Siegenthaler, and Tyler Lewington. Once again, puck drop is at 7 p.m. on NBC Sports Washington. You can check out the full roster here and the game notes here.