Washington Capitals host St. Louis Blues in second preseason game
The Washington Capitals continue their preseason on Wednesday night.
After a thrilling game Monday night that ended with a game-winning goal in overtime from Tom Wilson, the Washington Capitals return to the ice where they’ll host the defending Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues in a matchup of the last two champs.
These two teams will meet for real when the games actually count in exactly two weeks from now. But in the meantime we’ll see a couple of regulars as well as some new faces and maybe some who played in Monday’s Capitals win over the Chicago Blackhawks.
One day removed from his 34th birthday, Alex Ovechkin will be making his preseason debut. He had quite the day as his very own cereal “Ovi O’s” hit the store shelves at local D.C.-area Giant grocery stores. He also had a special visitor at Tuesday’s practice, his son Sergei!
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Other regulars you will see are Jakub Vrana, Nicklas Backstrom, Lars Eller, Carl Hagelin, T.J. Oshie, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov and John Carlson. Making their Caps debuts from the varsity squad standpoint are Radko Gudas and Richard Panik.
As for the young bucks you’ll see, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby will be playing and it is likely he’ll remain in North America to begin the season per NBC Sports Washington’s J.J. Regan. You’ll also see 2019 second rounder Brett Leason. Aliaksei Protas as well as Connor McMichael will appear in their second straight preseason game.
Protas had himself quite a game on Monday night, recording three points with a goal and a pair of assists. McMichael added an assist himself. Each are long shots but still possibilities for that third line center spot with Kuznetsov’s three-game suspension coming into play at the start of the season.
The Caps will go with a two-goalie rotation with Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek splitting the duties in between the pipes. Samsonov dressed Monday night but didn’t play so we’ll finally get a look at two of the best goalie prospects in the NHL.
Before they meet to begin the season, the Caps and Blues meet one last time in St. Louis next Thursday. One thing is certain, you will not see Tom Wilson in either tonight’s game or the one next week. He’s done with playing in preseason games against the Blues, and for good reason.
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Puck drop from Capital One Arena is at 7 p.m. and you can catch the game on NBC Sports Washington