T.J. Oshie and John Carlson were juggling pucks near the red line on Tuesday afternoon when Barry Trotz skated between them, right through the middle of their game.
Oshie flipped his puck toward the coach, who couldn’t handle the shoulder-high lob and watched it drop to the ice.
“I think he was trying to knock it down more than anything,” Oshie said. “I think he was watching too many skills competitions lately.”
After taking four days off because of the all-star break, the Washington Capitals resumed practice on Monday, ready to be thrust directly into an unforgiving second-half schedule.
Three players — Braden Holtby, Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov — were granted an extra day by Trotz, offering them a brief respite following their participation in the all-star festivities in Nashville.
Trotz wasn’t afforded the same break. After coaching the Metropolitan Division team in Sunday’s game, he acknowledged being tired and cranky after practice on Monday, owing to the demands of a travel schedule that won’t get any easier.
The Capitals will play 33 games in 68 days, plus two that have yet to be rescheduled because of the winter storm, beginning on Tuesday with a home game against the Atlantic Division-leading Florida Panthers.
“It’s going to be a lot of hockey here, but we’re all professionals in here,” right wing Tom Wilson said. “We know how to take care of our bodies. It’s nothing different. We’re not playing 10 games in a row. We’re playing a game every other night, a couple back-to-backs. Guys know to jump in the cold tub. Guys know to put some compression pants on here and there to make sure we’re recovering, and yeah, the wear and tear can happen, but you just need to give your body the best chance to go out there and get the two points every night.”
One challenge for the Capitals on Tuesday will be the absence of Alex Ovechkin, who, according to league rules, must sit out the game because he withdrew from all-star festivities with a lower-body injury.
Ovechkin’s absence led to a trip for Kuznetsov, who was honored by the NHL on Monday as its “First Star of the Month” — making him the first Capitals player besides Ovechkin to win the league’s top monthly honor since Alexander Semin claimed it in Oct. 2008.
The star left wing said he had a chance to rest during the break and figured he’d be available to play in the Capitals’ game against the New York Islanders at home on Thursday. He also didn’t see a problem with the league’s mandate that players sit once for bypassing the All-Star Game, acknowledging that it will help him rest the unspecified lower-body injury that Trotz said has been lingering since November.
“If you’re hurt, you know, then it’s better for your body to just let it go because you can see, like, the guys playing three-on-three, it’s going back and forth, and you’re not going to be healing,” Ovechkin said.
Ovechkin likely won’t be the only player sitting on Tuesday, as Marcus Johansson, who has been filling in as the third-line center in the wake of an injury to Jay Beagle, did not attend practice. Johansson probably will not play against the Panthers, Trotz said, after he sustained an unspecified upper-body injury in the Capitals’ loss to the Philadelphia Flyers last Wednesday.
In order to make sure they have enough healthy players for the game, they recalled Zach Sill, who has played in seven games this season, from the Hershey Bears. Mike Richards, who has been Washington’s fourth-line center since joining the team in early January, figures to move up to play between Wilson and left wing Jason Chimera.
And, because Holtby was given Monday’s practice off, backup goaltender Philipp Grubauer will almost surely get the start for the Capitals. The game would be Grubauer’s third against Florida this season; coincidentally, the Panthers will turn to Al Montoya with all-star Roberto Luongo needing a similar break, and Montoya will also be making his third appearance of the season against Washington.
“I mean, we play a game, then have a day off, then a game,” Grubauer said. “Going forward, we want to go deep this year and Holts can’t play every game. He wants to, but he can’t, so we’ve got to make sure I help out here.”
The Capitals will play a game every other day until Feb. 13, when they conclude a three-game road trip by facing the Dallas Stars. At 35-8-4, and with 74 points in the standings, they have the league’s best record and have also played the fewest games.
Managing the final two months of the season will be, as Trotz said, “demanding.”
“We’ve got to play an extra game a week for six weeks, so what kind of toll that takes on [us], we’ll see,” Trotz said. “I can’t tell you what kind of toll that will take. Hopefully, we can get through it, through injuries and all those things.”
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.