The Capitals are making some more tweaks to the lineup for Wednesday's tilt against the Avalanche.
The Washington Capitals know that a lot rests on Wednesday's game against the Colorado Avalanche, and as a result, they will see more lineup changes as they take the ice in Denver following a disappointing 24 hours earlier in Minnesota.
Head coach Spencer Carbery told reporters in his pregame press conference that Ethan Bear will draw back into the mix, while Trevor van Riemsdyk will draw back out as the healthy scratch. Van Riemsdyk was on the ice for three of the Minnesota Wild's five goals in Tuesday's loss.
"It's not ideal for TVR to go into a game and then come back out. I thought he struggled last night, and it's hard to do that, right? You go back in and now all of a sudden, you're trying to get into a rhythm and you're sat. So there's significant challenges with that," Carbery said. "I understand that but at the same time, it's competition, right? With eight guys that all want to be in the lineup and have good arguments to be in the lineup. It's difficult on those guys, but they have to seize that opportunity."
Washington will also continue to shuffle things around on the top two lines as Carbery looks to find combinations that work and provide consistent offense at 5-on-5. The Mantha-Kuznetsov pairing on the third line and the fourth line of Malenstyn-Dowd-Aube-Kubel will remain intact.
"A couple tweaks (tonight). I thought Kuz and Mo were our two best players on the ice last night for us, so that was a good combination that we hadn't used a lot this year. I felt like there's a little bit of chemistry there, so we'll go back with that," CXarbery told reporters in Colorado. "Tweak some other things of just trying to again find some consistency in that top six of some little bit of chemistry that we can rely on game to game."
Puck drop is at 9:30 p.m. ET at Ball Arena.