The Washington Capitals cautiously returned to the ice on Thursday at MedStar Capitals Iceplex after a few days off. We all know three players are in COVID protocol: Garnet Hathaway, Nic Dowd and Trevor Van Riemsdyk. Capitals goaltending coach Scott Murray is also in COVID protocol.
Carl Hagelin didn’t practice with an illness and was awaiting his COVID test. Caps assistant coach Kevin McCarthy was also absent with an illness but non COVID related. Hagelin’s COVID test came back negative so good news there.
Here were the lines via Samantha Pell of The Washington Post:
Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Sheary-Eller-Sprong
Sgarbossa-McMichael-Oshie
Malenstyn-Protas-Leason
Fehervary-Carlson
Orlov-Jensen
Irwin-Schultz
Now comes the scary part. Evgeny Kuznetsov left practice with a lower body injury. Coach Peter Laviolette said that it was just “precautionary” and that he’s “hopeful” he is good to go this Friday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
A friendly neighborhood reminder that tomorrow’s game can only be streamed exclusively on Hulu and ESPN plus and it won’t be broadcasted on NBC Sports Washington. Yeah, we know, it’s weird.
Precautionary is better than what we first expected when hearing Kuzy left the ice. And Hagelin’s test coming back negative is positive news meaning he’s good to go. He dodged COVID and scored a goal the other night. Not too bad of a week.
Conor Sheary gets bumped up to the second line while Hagelin, if available tomorrow night, could jump to the third line aside Connor McMichael. Daniel Sprong and T.J. Oshie trade places with Oshie going to the third line and Sprong getting that second line promotion. Mike Sgarbossa skated in Hagelin’s place at practice. The fourth line of Beck Malenstyn, Aliaksei Protas and Brett Leason remained untouched. As did the defense.
The Capitals have a back to back this weekend with the second game being a road contest against the Buffalo Sabres. They’ll then have a three day gap between games to continue their road trip. Hopefully some guys are recovered from COVID by then.