ARLINGTON, V.A. — The Washington Capitals will to see most of their NHL lineup in action on Friday when they host the Boston Bruins, as they're treating their preseason home finale like a bit of dress rehearsal.
With the exception of Alex Ovechkin, who will sit out the remainder of the exhibition games for precautionary reasons while recovering from a lower-body injury, Washington will run its projected opening night lineup, with Ethen Frank slotting in on Ovechkin's line with Dylan Strome and Ryan Leonard. Leonard will shift to the left side.
Logan Thompson will start and play the full game, with Clay Stevenson backing up. Charlie Lindgren, who can only appear in one more preseason game due to the veteran rule, will play the full game on Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Here are the line combinations:
Ryan Leonard-Dylan Strome-Ethen Frank
Alex Tuch-Pierre-Luc Dubois-Tom Wilson
Aliaksei Protas-Ilya Protas-Jordan Kyrou
Boone Jenner-Justin Sourdif-Anthony Beauvillier
Jakob Chychrun-Matt Roy
Cole Hutson-Vinny Desharnais
Martin Fehervary-Timothy Liljegren
Logan Thompson
Clay Stevenson
As Washington looks ahead to the start of the regular season next Friday in Carolina against the defending champion Hurricnaes, the team made more moves to trim its training camp roster, placing Bogdan Trineyev, Josh Dunne, Jacob MacDonald and Mitch Gibson on waivers for the purpose of assignment to the AHL's Hershey Hershey.
The Capitals camp roster now sits at 40 players with a handful of competitions still brewing. Jonny Brodzinski and Ivan Miroshnichenko remain as they compete for one of the extra forward spots, Justin Holl and Dylan McIlrath are battling for roster spots on the blue line and the team also continues to evaluate its goaltending situation and the potential of starting the year with three netminders.
