Washington Capitals: Reinforcements Arrive, TJ Oshie and Nic Dowd Activated from IR

The Washington Capitals, consisting of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Tom Wilson and a myriad of Hershey Bears have been on a roll of late.

The Caps ride a 6-game point streak into tonight’s showdown with the Sharks. Winners of five of those games, the Capitals have over-achieved. The rookies have stepped up to the plate and have become a nice story, as Peter Laviolette has been forced to rely upon them. But now, the team has announced that both T.J. Oshie and Nic Dowd have been activated from IR and are game-time decisions for tonight’s tilt against the San Jose Sharks.

In a corresponding move, the Capitals will send Brett Leason back down to the Hershey Bears. Leason played well in 10 games. Averaging 8 minutes and 24 seconds of ice-time, he scored two goals and added an assist.

I’ve been hard on Peter Laviolette and his usage of the rookie skaters, but over the past few games, he has done a much better job of spreading the ice-time evenly throughout the team’s forward group. Surely, out of necessity caused by the scheduling and partly because the Ovechkin-line has cooled off recently but kudos to Laviolette nonetheless.

Against the Kings, Aleksai Protas led rookie forwards with almost 14 minutes of ice-time. Connor McMichael had 13 minutes and 25 seconds of ice-time and Axel Jonsson-Fjallby impressed with 12 minutes and 15 seconds of ice-time. No skater got less than 9 minutes and 21 seconds. Looking back to the game against the Ducks, every skater besides Garrett Pilon, who got 9 minutes and 28 seconds of ice-time, got fewer than 10 minutes.

Oshie is a top-six forward and a key piece to the team’s struggling power play unit and Dowd is a huge member of the team’s penalty kill and their best faceoff man. It’s no secret that their return undoubtedly make the Capitals a much better team, here’s to hoping that Laviolette continues to roll all four lines.