The Washington Capitals training camp roster is out.
The Washington Capitals will begin their training camp today with their first on ice session taking place tomorrow. Practices sadly will be closed to the public due to the pandemic but it’s the right call so these players can focus on the season ahead.
This will be the Caps 14th training camp at MedStar Capitals Iceplex which is their team headquarters. The roster includes 24 forwards, 12 defensemen and five goalies. The players will be split up into two squads dubbed Group A and Group B and their scheudles will vary.
Training camp will last 10 days with the NHL regular season beginning on Wednesday, Jan. 13 with three games. The Caps will open the season against the Buffalo Sabres at the KeyBank Center on Jan. 14th with puck drop at 7 p.m.
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The regular season will consist of 56 games beginning on Jan. 13 and concluding on May 8. Each team in the East, Central, and West divisions will play every other team in their division eight times while each team in the North Division (all Canada) will play every other team in their division nine or 10 times.
The top four teams in each division will qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs with intradivisional play in the first two rounds with #1 vs. #4 and #2 vs. #3. The four teams that advance to the semifinal round will be seeded by their regular season points total.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the training camp roster. Let’s start with the forwards. The forwards: Nicklas Backstrom, Daniel Carr, Kody Clark, Nic Dowd, Lars Eller, Shane Gersich, Carl Hagelin, Garnet Hathaway, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Hendrix Lapierre, Philippe Maillet.
The rest of the forwards: T.J. Oshie, Alex Ovechkin, Richard Panik, Garrett Pilon, Brian Pinho, Michael Sgarbossa, Conor Sheary, Joe Snively, Daniel Sprong, Riley Sutter, Jakub Vrana and Tom Wilson.
The defensemen: John Carlson, Zdeno Chara, Brenden Dillon, Martin Fehervary, Nick Jensen, Lucas Johansen, Paul LaDue, Dmitry Orlov, Cameron Schilling, Justin Schultz, Jonas Siegenthaler, and Trevor van Riemsdyk.
Finally, the goalies: Craig Anderson, Pheonix Copley, Zach Fucale, Ilya Samsonov, and Vitek Vanecek.
I know what you’re thinking, where’s Connor McMichael? He’s currently with Team Canada at the World Juniors. He would still have to quarantine when he’s back in the states before possibly joining the Caps taxi squad.
Overall it’s a solid squad entering the season and we’ll see which players will make the final opening night roster. Tomorrow Group A hits the ice at 9:30 a.m. while Group B takes the ice at 3.