5 strategies the Capitals should do after the holiday break

Washington Capitals hockey finally comes back tonight after a 10 day absence. It was part pause with COVID-19 getting bad again across the sports world as well as a holiday break. Either way, we are back.

The Caps will take on the Nashville Predators tonight at Capital One Arena. The Preds are second in the Central Division in the Western Conference with a 19-10-1 record with 39 points, just one point behind the first place Minnesota Wild. The Caps are tied for first in the Metropolitan Division with 43 points.

Now that the holiday break is over and we’re returning back to hockey here are five strategies the Capitals should try.

#5 Slight tweak in the penalty kill

The Caps penalty kill is in the middle of the pack tied with the Boston Bruins for 13th place in the NHL with a kill success rate of 81 percent. Compared to the power play, that’s miles better.

Here are the PK units via Daily Face Off:

1st unit: Nic Dowd, Carl Hagelin, Dmitry Orlov, John Carlson

2nd unit: Lars Eller, Garnet Hathaway, Trevor Van Riemsdyk, Matt Irwin

With many players in COVID protocol there isn’t too much you can do with the PK. I’d make this slight adjustment of putting Justin Schultz in John Carlson‘s spot if he was available but alas. But why not flip Matt Irwin for Carlson and add Alex Alexyev or Martin Fehervary to the mix of the second unit?

#2 Defensive pair adjustments

The Caps returned to the ice earlier this week. Although today was just an optional skate at MedStar Capitals Iceplex we can at least get a little bit of a read of what the lineup could look like tonight based on yesterday’s practice. We might get to see the NHL debut of Alex Alexeyev.

Here is what the defensive pairs looked like via JJ Regan of NBC Sports Washington:

Orlov-Carlson
Kempny-TvR
Alexeyev-Irwin

We are missing two big faces on the defense such as Martin Fehervary and Nick Jensen. We are also missing Justin Schultz and Dennis Cholowski. They all are under COVID protocol.

I like Dmitry Orlov and John Carlson on the top pair. I would flip Alex Alexeyev and Michal Kempny’s spots and have Alexeyev next to Trevor Van Riemsdyk and Kempny against Matt Irwin. That is just me.

But either way it’ll be exciting to have Kempny back from the minors even though we all wish the circumstances would be better. He had quite the journey:

“It’s been crazy. … You don’t know who is going to come positive, who is going to be positive on the other team. It’s a lot.”

The defense will look to improve and we’ll see if these current pairs work.

#2 Let the kids play

This goes hand in hand with let everybody eat. Why not let the youth get more ice time? Like we mentioned in the power play slide, what is there to lose? You might as well see what you got based on who’s available.

Martin Fehervary currently leads the rookies in averaging 19:01 minutes of ice time. Next up is another defenseman: Dennis Cholowski who averages 13:45 minutes of ice time. Next in line is finally a forward with Aliaksei Protas with 12:46. Then there’s the following: Axel Jonsson-Fjallby (11:54), Connor McMichael (11:13), Hendrix Lapierre (9:35), Garrett Pilon (9:25), Beck Malenstyn (9:03), Brett Leason (8:50), and Joe Snively (6:53). We included every rookie in this exercise so you can get a gist of their ice time, or lack thereof.

Looking at these numbers why is Protas getting more ice time than McMichael? Probably because he’s getting the power play time while McMichael isn’t. The fact none of the forwards are averaging at least 15 minutes is a little alarming. You gotta balance out the ice time between the veterans and the youth. That’s what keeps the engine running on the good teams from October to the summer.

We might see some changes however with this recent stretch that is coming up.

#1 Throw the forward lines into a blender

Here’s what the forward lines looked like from yesterday’s practice:

Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Sheary-Backstrom-Protas
McMichael-Eller-Hathaway
Hagelin-Dowd-Leason

I would play around a little with this. I originally thought McMichael should get bumped to the second line but let’s wait until Sheary gets in a bit of a slump before we make that switch. Right now Sheary is on a career high five game point streak.

I would move Hathaway and Protas to give the Caps a 1-2 punch of Garnet Hathaway and Tom Wilson in the top six. Hathaway has seven goals and three assists for 10 points. Protas so far has two goals and four assists for six points.

For the first time this season the Caps have their top four centers back in the lineup. It’ll take some time to see if these lines above would gel so I would wait and see how tonight’s game goes before making these changes.

Now that I think about it, a McMichael-Eller-Protas line would make more sense than a McMichael-Eller-Hathaway line. And then there’s T.J. Oshie who hasn’t cleared COVID protocol yet but practiced during the optional morning skate. You also have to see where to slot him in as well.