On Sunday morning, the Washington Capitals were on the ice at the Capitals MedStar Iceplex, and joining the team as full participants were veterans TJ Oshie and Dmitry Orlov. Oshie and Orlov had been skating in contactless shirts the previous days.
The health of both players matters when it comes to which team makes the final decisions for its 23-man roster to start the regular season. Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir reports that Brett Leason, Henrik Borgstrom, Lucas Johansen and Axel Jonsson-Fjallby have not trained and he expects those four to be waived on Sunday afternoon at fewer backhands from Oshie or Orlov.
Leason, Borgstrom, Johansen and Jonsson-Fjallby are not on the ice for practice Sunday. It looks like it’s the four players going on waivers at 2 p.m. I guess the #Caps I want to see how training is going with Oshie (upper body) and Orlov (lower body) before making a final call.
— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) October 9, 2022
This information tells us that the Capitals plan to go into Wednesday’s opener against the Boston Bruins with 14 forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders. Notably, forwards Aliaksei Protas, Joe Snively and Connor McMichael would be part of this group of 14.
The team too said Samantha Pell of the Washington Post that Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson, Carl Hagelin and Alexander Alexeyev will be on the long-term reserve/non-disabled list to start the campaign.
This leaves the potential final list as follows.
Forwards: Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, TJ Oshie, Anthony Mantha, Connor Brown, Lars Eller, Dylan Strome, Garnet Hathaway, Conor Sheary, Nic Dowd, Marcus Johansson, Connor McMichael, Joe Snively, Aliaksei Protas
Defenders: John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov, Nick Jensen, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Erik Gustafsson, Martin Fehervary, Matt Irwin
Goalkeepers: Darcy Kuemper, Charlie Lindgren
Oshie and Orlov returned to full practice after missing the team’s final preseason game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Oshie suffered an upper body injury due to a hit by Detroit Red Wings forward Joe Veleno. The cause of Orlov’s lower body injury is still unclear.
Both players were previously listed as “day to day” according to head coach Peter Laviolette. They says Pell they should be ready for the game against the Bruins.
Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin did not skate Sunday as the team says he took a day off maintenance.
Main photo: Alan Dobbins/MRNB
