Breaking down the 2022 Capitals Opening Night roster

The 2022 preseason is in the books and now the Washington Capitals are gearing up for the regular season which begins on Wednesday night at Capital One Arena against the Boston Bruins.

Before we get to the roster let’s look at the following players the Capitals put on waivers yesterday. They placed Brett Leason, Axel Jonsson Fjallby, Henrik Borgstrom and Lucas Johansen on waivers. Borgstrom and Johansen both cleared waivers and are headed to Hershey. AJF got claimed by the Winnipeg Jets while Leason got claimed by the Anaheim Ducks.

Now let’s look at the official Capitals opening night roster where they’ll go with 14 forwards, seven defensemen, and two goalies.

Forwards
Alex Ovechkin
Dylan Strome
Nicklas Backstrom*
Lars Eller
Garnet Hathaway
Connor McMichael
Nic Dowd
Connor Brown
Anthony Mantha
Tom Wilson*
Aliaksei Protas
Carl Hagelin*
Conor Sheary
T.J. Oshie
Marcus Johansson
Joe Snively
Evgeny Kuznetsov

Defensemen
Nick Jensen
Dmitry Orlov
Martin Fehervary
Matt Irwin
Erik Gustafsson
Trevor van Riemsdyk
John Carlson

Goaltenders
Darcy Kuemper
Charlie Lindgren

The Capitals placed Nicklas Backstrom on long term injury reserve. Carl Hagelin and Tom Wilson are both on the injured non roster list.

Aliaksei Protas who had a great preseason got the roster spot he deserved. He told Tarik El Bashir of The Athletic:

"“I still can’t believe it, that I made it. I’m so happy now but I have to work even more to prove I deserve it.”"

Joe Snively, the Herndon, Virginia native added:

"“It’s really nice; that was my goal coming into camp, to make the team. So it’s good but there’s a lot more work to be done.”"

Connor McMichael, who looks to make an impact in his second season, added:

"“It’s always a good feeling. It’s something I’ve been working toward all summer, and obviously my whole life to get to this level. It’s something that I’ll never take for granted, making an opening night roster. So it’s pretty cool.”"

Once again the Capitals open the season on Wednesday night with a 7 p.m. puck drop on TNT. We’ll have plenty of coverage leading up to the game.