Nic Dowd enters COVID protocol

The injuries keep piling up for the Washington Capitals and in this case it wasn’t an injury, it was an illness. After Nic Dowd scored a goal and assisted on another in last night’s shootout loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, he was absent at practice with an illness.

We only knew it was an illness at the time, including from the update from Coach Peter Laviolette himself, but later in the day Capitals PR announced that it was indeed COVID-19 related.

Dowd is the second Caps player this season to battle the coronavirus. Just a short time ago, center Lars Eller was quarantining in Anaheim, 10 days to be exact while the team was bouncing around their west coast trip before returning home. He was symptomatic for the first three days of isolation but returned to action against the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday.

Dowd wasn’t the only Caps player absent from practice. John Carlson, Garnet Hathaway, and Carl Hagelin were out and taking maintenance days. Laviolette noted that there’s a possibility the trio could miss Saturday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Now that we got all the bad news out of the way let’s move on to some good news. Nicklas Backstrom got the thumbs up for full contact at practice on Friday. He went through every drill. Backstrom has been on long term injured reserve since the start of the season with a hip injury.

Backstrom had started skating with the team for the last two weeks in a non contact jersey. Prior to that he was skating on his own prior to practices and morning skates wit Capitals strength and conditioning coach Mark Nemish as well as local skating coach Wendy Marco.

There isn’t a timetable for Backstrom’s return… Yet, but Laviolette has been pleased with his progression. Not only was Backstrom cleared for contact but so was T.J. Oshie and Conor Sheary. Laviolette said those two are closer to returning than Backstrom is and didn’t rule out the possibility that they could be available Saturday.

Oshie has missed the last six games with a lower body injury which was a separate lower body injury than what he had just recovered from. Prior to that, Oshie missed 10 games. Sheary has also missed the last six games with an upper body injury.

The Capitals host the Columbus Blue Jackets tomorrow night at Capital One Arena.