The Caps hosted their annual media luncheon at Kettler Iceplex on Tuesday and afterwards we spoke with general manager George McPhee the day before NHL rosters are officially set.
Washington waived forward Andrew Gordon and defenseman Brian Fahey with the hope that both players clear and can be assigned to AHL Hershey. Waiting for them there are Mathieu Perreault, who lost out on the third-line center role to Marcus Johansson, and Jay Beagle.
[Cutting players] is always tough. [But] I sometimes look at this deadline as an artificial deadline,” McPhee said. “We have to set rosters [Wednesday], but it can change the next day. So if someone isn’t performing well or we have injuries we have good young players to recall to play. And that’s really the strength of our organization. We have a good team. But we have depth as well.”
You figure they’ll need it at some point. That was the case last year, for sure. Bruce Boudreau reminded reporters that his team lost between 350 to 400 man-games to injury.
Boudreau said defenseman Mike Green would practice on Wednesday after sitting out on Tuesday morning. The Caps look good to go on the blueline with John Carlson already back at work Tuesday after missing the final two preseason games. Meanwhile, injured goalie Semyon Varlamov took some shots at Tuesday’s practice for about 15 minutes and will try again on Wednesday. If he can’t go this weekend then Dany Sabourin will remain with the team as Michael Neuvirth’s backup.
“It’s one of those things we don’t want to rush [Varlamov],” Boudreau said. “We’d rather have him for 70 games than for 20 games. So when he’s ready he’ll be the first one to let us know.”
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