Like a mini-playoff series – okay, except without any of the pressure – the Caps and Bruins take a day off before seeing each other again on Thursday night at TD Garden. Boston took a 3-1 win at Verizon Center on Tuesday night.
Defenseman Mike Green was on the ice at practice on Wednesday, but said he would not travel with the team to Boston. It will be Washington’s third game in a row without Green. Forward Boyd Gordon didn’t practice – one day after being listed as a healthy scratch – and coach Bruce Boudreau shed little light on the reason for his absence. Gordon was not listed as injured or day-to-day or any of that.
Meanwhile, goalie Michal Neuvirth is still feeling ill after being removed from Tuesday’s loss in the first period because of flu-like symptoms. He did make it through the entire practice on Wednesday. As did Semyon Varlamov, who saw relatively little rubber in relief, stopping 14 of 15 Boston shots. But Varlamov had little to say about a potential start on Thursday, which would be his first of the season. “Ask coach,” was about all we got out of him.
Boudreau – as he is wont to do – made a line change at practice. Rookie Marcus Johansson, who scored his first NHL goal on Tuesday, practiced with the second line alongside Alex Semin and Brooks Laich. Joining Eric Fehr and Jason Chimera on the third line was Tomas Fleischmann, who said he is used to Boudreau’s experimentation. In this case, though, Fleischmann has a long history with Fehr, who have played on-and-off since their days with AHL Hershey.
“Just something to look at, to see the chemistry,” Boudreau said. “We’re not scoring anywhere near the pace that we’re capable of. I think it has to do with we’re not getting a lot of offense from our power play.”
There is that. While the Caps are 25-for-25 on the penalty kill they are just 4-for-26 (15.4%) on the power play. Hard to get too concerned yet about a group that ranked first in the NHL last season. But they’d still like to see some improvement soon.
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