Capitals coach Spencer Carbery discusses breaking up Nic Dowd's fourth line and shaking things up to generate some more chemistry up front.
ARLINGTON, V.A. — When Nic Dowd and Brandon Duhaime checked the board with lines on Monday ahead of the Washington Capitals' tilt against the Los Angeles Kings, they were surprised to find that, for the first time over a season, they'd be playing on different lines.
Dowd was moved to a third line with Anthony Beauvillier and Ryan Leonard, while Duhaime stayed on the fourth trio to work with Hendrix Lapierre and Ethen Frank.
"Definitely a little bit of a shakeup," Dowd acknowledged. "I don't think me and Dewey have been apart since he's been here, so we kind of had to hash it out a little bit," Dowd joked.
For coach Spencer Carbery, the move was something the group had been considering for a while, and it stemmed from a lot of different factors.
"Part of it's trying to get (Ryan) Leonard more ice as well," Carbery said. "There's a lot of factors that we're look at it to balance our lines a little bit better. Deployment-wise, there's a lot of things that go into it, so just felt like this was the appropriate time to give (Dowd) an opportunity to play with (Anthony Beauvillier) and Leno."
Both combinations held their own in a 2-1 win over Los Angeles, with Dowd working with Beauvillier and Leonard to generate a handful of high-quality opportunities while the Duhaime line got some good reps while Lapierre reunited with Frank, who he played with in Hershey.
For Carbery, it provided some much-needed stability on the bottom-6 and synced up well with his moves up front, which saw Connor McMichael move to the wing to play with Alex Ovechkin and Dylan Strome and Justin Sourdif promoted to center Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson.
Now, the hope is that those combinations can remain go-to options and perform well as Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers head to town.
"When you're making line changes, you're watching to see if there's any chemistry. So if there is, one game, two games, you really want to see it until it gets to that third game and fourth game to where, 'Wow, okay,'" Carbery said, adding, "We're talking to each of the guys, we feel like they're reading off one another, they're communicating well, all the guys are playing well, their underlying numbers are good, the film looks really good.
"Hopefully, it's a sign of things to come, to keep some lines together for a significant amount or decent stretch."