The schedule picks up again for Washington as the Stanley Cup playoffs approach. With a game almost every other day until March 18 there isn’t much time for the three new players – Jason Arnott, Marco Sturm and Dennis Wideman – to get acclimated with a few long practices.
“You know what, guys get hurt and you call up guys. A lot of times you just call them up for the game,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said. “They don’t have time to get acclimated, either. It’s just ‘Get out there. You know how to play.’ And we’ll learn as we go.
Washington had just one goalie on the ice Wednesday as Michal Neuvirth got a day off and Semyon Varlamov continues to battle a nagging lower-body injury. AHL recall Todd Ford served as the only goalie. Brett Leonhardt has really left this team in a lurch in the emergency goalie department with his mid-season departure. Varlamov’s situation is becoming a concern, though Boudreau said he’s hopeful he won’t be out too much longer. No one’s putting an exact timetable on that one, though. For now he is day-to-day.
Defenseman Mike Green isn’t expected back for a few weeks yet and he remains in Calgary for his grandmother’s funeral. He will meet the team in Florida on Friday with his dad. The team’s annual father’s trip is this weekend before back-to-back games against the Panthers and Tampa Bay on Sunday and Monday.
“Getting closer” is how Bruce Boudreau described forward Eric Fehr’s status. Fehr said he’s more confident on the ice after going through contact drills twice this week. Really, he feels good about shooting the puck without pain and says his conditioning is better than when he left thanks to work done with strength and conditioning coach Mark Nemish. It’s the contact that’s the issue. But while he could play on the Florida road trip this weekend Fehr isn’t betting the house on that one.
“I don’t want to get to far ahead of myself and set a specific date,” Fehr said. “I’m really hoping in the near future I’ll be back [but] I’ve set [a date] before and failed so I just want to see when I’m feeling my best and when [Boudreau] thinks I can get in the lineup.”
Forward Alex Semin took “a maintenance day” and forward Jay Beagle is still dealing with an upper-body injury. Defenseman Tom Poti again skated on the ice by himself before practice and during the non-contact portion of practice with his teammates before departing once contact commenced. Everyone else was on the ice.
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