Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau excused his team’s relative lack of energy on Wednesday – the day after a thrilling 5-4 win over Anaheim. But he told them he wanted to see more on Thursday in preparation for this weekend’s back-to-back trip at Carolina and the New York Islanders.
Defenseman Mike Green came onto the ice about 10 a.m. to test his right ankle. He remained on with his teammates until about 10:40 – 10 minutes of actual practice time – before leaving. I’d say that knocks him out for this weekend’s trip. Meanwhile, Troy Brouwer didn’t practice, either. And while his situation is reportedly precautionary, it doesn’t seem likely we’ll see him, either. Maybe he could play. But at 8-2 and this early in the season, why bother? Washington has another busy week coming up with games against Dallas (Nov. 8) and a back-to-back against the Devils (Nov. 11 and 12th).
So the lineup looked a little different.
Ovechkin-Backstrom-Semin
Eakin-Johansson-Perreault
Chimera-Laich-Ward
Hendricks-Halpern-Knuble
Not sure if that second line would stay together. Seems like a Boudreau experiment for a day, but we’ll see. D.J. King skated with a green jersey on the third line. The defense pairings should remain Jeff Schultz–Karl Alzner, John Erskine–John Carlson and Roman Hamrlik–Dennis Wideman. That’s what we saw after Green left the ice, anyway.
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