The Washington Capitals remain on the road, seeking to extend their early-season winning streak to four games against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night.
Washington has given their goaltenders an even split of the net through four games, and that trend will continue as Charlie Lindgren returns to man the cage in Philly. Per NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman, Lindgren will play in Tuesday’s road game, while Logan Thompson will start the home half of the back-to-back against the Flyers in DC. No other lineup changes are expected.
Lindgren is 1-1 in his two starts this season with a 3.06 goals-against average and a .893 save percentage. He has been outstanding against Philadelphia in five previous career games against the Flyers, posting a 3-0-2 record with a 1.36 goals-against average, a .952 save percentage, and one shutout.
The Capitals took Sunday off after downing the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center on Saturday night. The team was back on the ice for practice Monday, and head coach Spencer Carbery spoke about how his team’s challenging early-season schedule is impacting them.
“I think it was extremely important to be able to recharge the batteries,” Carbery said. “After not just that game and playing against New Jersey – first road game of the year, tough opponent – but also a bit of a hangover from the Vegas and Dallas games that took a lot out of us physically and mentally. Good day to recharge, and then right back at it today and refuel for a difficult back-to-back matchup with Philly.”
The two games against the Flyers will make four against Metropolitan Division foes out of the Capitals’ first six games. Next week, they’ll stick with the divisional theme and play the New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets.
By the end of November, they will have played each team in their division at least once. Carbery was asked if, due to the Capitals’ extensive roster turnover over the summer, he prefers to get many of those rivalry matchups early this year.
“There’s pros and cons to it,” Carbery said. “The pros from a pre-scout standpoint and playing somebody back-to-back and getting familiar with them – a team that’s in your division that you’re going to be fighting for points with all year and probably going to be jockeying with.
“The cons – playing an opponent consistently, sometimes it just wears on the guys a little bit, but that’s life and the schedule, and to play the home and home, back-to-back. We know it’s a difficult opponent. We had a ton of really quality games against them on both sides of it that were highly, highly contested on both sides so we don’t expect anything different in the next two days.”
Philadelphia comes into Tuesday night’s action having won just one of their first five outings. The Flyers took their opening game against the Vancouver Canucks in a shootout but have lost four consecutive against the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Seattle Kraken, and Canucks.
Head coach John Tortorella is going with Samuel Ersson in net against the Capitals. Ersson was the goaltender the Caps beat to sneak into the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference in their final game of the 2023-24 regular season.
