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Insider confirms Washington Capitals open to lineup changes against Carolina Hurricanes
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Following a tough loss in Game 1 to the Carolina Hurricanes, the Washington Capitals refocused by reviewing game film, doing off-ice training, and holding an optional practice session.
Washington was thoroughly outplayed in their second-round opener, outshot 33-14 in a 2-1 overtime defeat, but the team is eager to regroup and rediscover its identity heading into Game 2.
Head coach Spencer Carbery reveals the team will consider lineup changes ahead of Game 2.
Sammi Silber from The Hockey News writes that Tom Wilson, Aliaksei Protas, Ryan Leonard, Taylor Raddysh, Ethen Frank, Dylan McIlrath, Ethan Bear, Charlie Lindgren, and Mitchell Gibson participated in the optional skate, which focused on drills, skill development, skating, and attention to detail.
Here's what Capitals forward Brandon Duhaime had to say following his team's Game 1 overtime loss.
"It's not as much what (Carolina) did, but what we didn't do yesterday. We kind of got to look in the mirrors at ourselves and just improve." -Duhaime
Washington has moved on from the loss, choosing not to dwell on it and instead focusing on evening the series before heading to Raleigh says Capitals forward Nic Dowd.
"That game's over now. We've moved on. Like we can learn from it, no question, but you can't sulk on it. We have six games here that are a potential to play. I mean, you watch the Winnipeg series, that game went down to the last one second. Anything can happen in these playoffs... today we're focused on individuals and how they can get their game ready for tomorrow. That game's over with. Even if we had won, that game's over with. Now we have another potential six games, and we'll start with tomorrow." -Dowd
Heading into Thursday's Game 2, coach Spencer Carbery hinted that lineup changes could be on the horizon as he evaluates individual performances.
"We do that every game, win or lose. But when you go through something like that, it makes you look at different options and what, as a staff, if we need to do anything, if at all, to try to problem-solve some of the issues that we had last night. That goes into systematic personnel, line combination, D-pair, all of it we'll talk about, break down, and then figure out what we feel like is the best course of action for any type of alteration." -Carbery
Game 2 goes Thursday night at 7:00pm from Capital One Arena.
| POLL | ||
MAI 7 | 54 ANSWERS Insider confirms Washington Capitals open to lineup changes against Carolina Hurricanes Do you think Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery should mix up his lines ahead of Game 2 against Carolina? | ||
| yes | 50 | 92.6 % |
| no | 4 | 7.4 % |
| List of polls | ||
