The Capitals got a new look to open the new year.

ARLINGTON, V.A. — New year, new combos for the Washington Capitals.

Washington kicked off 2024 by moving things around at Monday's practice in order to try and keep sparking offense while finding consistency on the ever-changing top-6.

The most significant change was to the power play, where Alex Ovechkin was moved from his office and changed places with John Carlson. The two also took some steps back and were playing closer to the blue line rather than having Ovechkin higher up in the play. It paid off with a goal during practice.

"Just trying some different things seeing as we continue to evolve with the group, look at different options, find different ways — no different than what I've said all year — trying to keep teams off balance," Carbery said. "We'll see if we use it (Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins). We'll continue to look at different things while we find a groove on the power play."

Then, more change took affect at 5-on-5. Evgeny Kuznetsov was moved back to the first-line center spot, reuniting him with longtime linemates Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson. Dylan Strome, meanwhile, will work on the third line with Hendrix Lapierre and Matthew Phillips, and will likely be put with Max Pacioretty when he makes his eventual debut.

For Carbery, he wasn't happy with how the Ovechkin-Strome-Kuznetsov line fared back on Saturday in a 3-2 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators, so he went back to a combination that has proven itself in the past, but not so much this season.

"Just trying to find something that can get rolling. I felt like we went on a good little run there with O, Stromer and Willy. There wasn't a lot of production, but I thought they played solid and we were winning games and it was sort of that stretch where we're grinding games out, and now as we've sort of started to struggle to score and to be able to win those tight games or keep the games tight, we need to find something in that top-6," Carbery said.

The 42-year-old bench boss also hopes that the change will add some stability and put an end to the revolving door of changes to the first and second lines.

"We're looking at all different options, from Kuz going back to the middle, playing with O. They have not had a good run when they were together earlier this year, so it's a little bit of a leap of faith, but also I didn't think Stromer-Kuz-O the other night was an effective line and Kuz on the wing is not a natural fit," he added. "It's a long-winded way of saying we're looking at different options and we're gonna continue to try to find ways to create more 5-on-5 and find some consistency and some continuity on the top-6."

Here were the full combinations from practice:

Alex Ovechkin-Evgeny Kuznetsov-Tom Wilson

Aliaksei Protas-Connor McMichael-Anthony Mantha

Hendrix Lapierre-Dylan Strome-Matthew Phillips

Beck Malenstyn-Nic Dowd-Nicolas Aube-Kubel

Martin Fehervary-John Carlson

Rasmus Sandin-Trevor van Riemsdyk

Joel Edmundson-Ethan Bear

Darcy Kuemper

Hunter Shepard

Washington faces the Penguins in the first game of a back-to-back on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET.