No Jay Beagle on the ice at Saturday’s morning skate as the Caps prepared to face the Ottawa Senators tonight at Verizon Center. The forward didn’t practice on Friday, either, after taking two rights to the face from Arron Asham in Thursday’s overtime win. Washington coach Bruce Boudreau said Beagle looks okay with the swelling going down. But the team is again being cautious. And keeping him off the ice to make sure no concussion-related symptoms arise. Not that he was all that happy with that decision.
“Any time you’re an athlete and you’re a competitive guy you want to play,” Boudreau said. “It’s always a difficult thing and Jay is as competitive as they come. He wants to be out there with the guys.”
Without Beagle available, D.J. King likely slides back into the lineup at fourth-line right wing for his first game action of the season. Could be a reaction to the Arron Asham-Beagle scrap the other night where Beagle was out of his league battling an experienced fighter.
Then again, Ottawa has two of the tougher characters in the NHL in Chris Neil and Zenon Konapka. Those two have a combined 49 penalty minutes and three majors to rank No. 1 and 2 in penalty minutes in the league. And Konopka’s only played in two of Ottawa’s four games so far. Konapka has two fights already, Neil has one. Even Zack Smith has a fight and 11 penalty minutes.
Konopka, who was playing for the New York Islanders then, and Neil actually finished first and second in penalty minutes for the entire 2010-11 season. They combined for 517 PIMs total. Neil had 12 fights. Konopka had 25 fights. So, yeah, probably a good time to break the emergency glass on D.J. King.
“Protection. If they’ve got a lot of toughness in the lineup it’s protection for us,” Boudreau said. “Again, unless you’ve played it’s hard to understand. If you’re walking down the street with your big brother you feel more comfortable….Plus, [King] had a good preseason, he works hard, he’s a great teammate. He deserves to play. We do a lot of matchups. If he’s in that means it’s a better matchup for us.”
Follow me on Twitter @bmcnally14
