SKATE SHAVINGS — News and notes from the Caps’ Morning Skate

Buffalo Run – The Caps make a quick one-game trip to Buffalo for their lone visit to Western New York this season, and the last of their five Monday night road games this season. Owners of an eight-game point streak (6-0-2) on home ice, the Caps are looking to get right on the road in a building that hasn’t been kind to them over the past few seasons.

After snapping a 10-game winning streak earlier in the season, the Caps have lost four of their last five road games (1-4-0). They have two more one-game trips — to Nashville and Ottawa, respectively — before embarking on the longest road trip of the season in the back half of this month.

Washington has lost each of its last three visits to Buffalo, falling by a combined 17-8 in those three contests. In their only previous meeting this season, on Dec. 14 in Washington, the Caps won 4-2 over the Sabres.

Buffalo was without blueliner Rasmus Dahlin in that game last month, but the dynamic defenseman is back in the lineup and has nine helpers in his last six games.

“(He’s a) game changer out there,” Caps coach Spencer Carbery said. “It just gives them an extra weapon that can change the game in a number of different facets, whether it’s the power play, 5-on-5, offensive blueline. He’s playing a ton of minutes for them, so we’re going to have to be prepared for him.”

Draw the line – The Caps’ revamped line combinations delivered a 7-4 victory over the New York Rangers on Saturday afternoon at Capital One Arena. Three of Washington’s four forward lines got a new look for Saturday’s game, and all four lines went 5-on-5 for the Caps in the win over the Blueshirts.

It was four years ago this month — at the start of the pandemic-shortened and time-limited 56-game 2020-21 season — that then-Caps coach Peter Laviolette first lined up Nic Dowd with Carl Hagelin and Garnet Hathaway, and that The Dowd line – obviously with different wing players the last few seasons – has continued to show its brand with the same man in the middle.

Laviolette deployed the Dowd line to shut down Buffalo’s line of Taylor Hall, Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart early in the season, as the Caps and Sabers met eight times, with half of those meetings coming in the first half-dozen games of the season. Then-Sabres coach Ralph Krueger quickly gave the Dowd line its due, referring to the unit as “one of the best control lines in the league.”

Four years and a few hundred games later, Dowd still centers one of the game’s best control lines; though he has had a rotating cast of wing players (last year’s wings – Beck Malenstyn and Nicolas Aube-Kubel – are both now with Buffalo). Last week, before Andrew Mangiapane was dropped to the right side of that unit, Dowd discussed repeating his 2024-25 line with Brandon Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh.

“I think we all want to accomplish the same goal,” the veteran center says, “and I think our individual goals align with what we want to do as a line. I wouldn’t say that we all play the same way, because then I think we wouldn’t complement each other the way we do, but I feel like we’re all good at similar things.

“I think what makes us successful is that we’re predictable (to each other) in terms of where the puck is going to go, and that allows us to have half a second on top of the defenseman. We understand , that we get the puck over here and it ends up over here, so the guys have to be over here. And then another thing that makes us successful is that we play close to each other. In the (defensive) zone, we are close to each other .We are not relying on a guy to make two or three plays to get out of the zone; I trust those guys to be right next to me to help me.

“And then in the (offensive) zone it’s exactly the same. We ask F1 and F2 to do their jobs – and F3 – but we’re all very close to each other, so if anyone needs help, we’re right there to help. We try to make it challenging (for the opposition) to get out of the zone, stifling (them), and we keep doing the same thing over and over and over. And then eventually you know something will happen, right? And sometimes you score, sometimes you don’t, sometimes you get rewarded, and sometimes you don’t. But honestly, in my opinion, with the way we’re playing, if we keep doing the same thing, eventually we’ll get a positive result.”

It’s a relentless mindset and performance on the ice, and it seems to rub off easily to whoever sits on either side of Dowd. In his first game on the line last Saturday against the Rangers, Mangiapane provided the third of Washington’s seven goals on a sublime crossfield feed from Dowd.

A day later, Carbery praised Mangiapane’s Saturday performance as “one of his best games of the year, as a Washington Capital.”

“They’re good, hard-working players and it’s easy to read them,” Mangiapane says of his newest linemates. They are predictable and they make the right play I would say every time, or at least they try to. It’s fun to play with those guys. They work hard and I think we had good chemistry today.”

In The Nets – Charlie Lindgren gets the puck tonight for the Capitals in Buffalo. From Nov. 15-Dec. 20, Lindgren won seven of nine starts, but he’s looking to end a short three-game personal slide (0-2-1) tonight. Most recently, he made 30 saves in a Jan. 2 shootout loss to Minnesota at Capital One Arena.

In five career appearances – four starts – against the Sabres, Lindgren is 2-2-0 with a 3.68 GAA and an .874 save percentage.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is the expected starter for the Sabers tonight. Buffalo’s second-round pick (54th overall) from the 2017 NHL Draft is now in his fifth NHL season, and he set a career high with 27 wins last season. He is 3-1-1 in his last five starts, allowing two or fewer goals against in three of the five games.

Lifetime against the Caps, Luukkonen is 4-1-2 in seven appearances, all starts with a 2.93 GAA and a .906 save percentage.

Everyone lined up – Here’s how we think the Caps and the Sabers could look Monday night in Buffalo:

WASHINGTON

Extenders

8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 16-Raddysh

21-Protas, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson

20-Or, 24-McMichael, 13-Vrana

22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 88-Mangiapane

Defenders

38-Sandin, 74-Carlson

6-Chychrun, 3-Roy

42-Fehervary, 57-van Riemsdyk

Goalkeepers

48-Thompson

79-Lindgren

Additional

27-Alekseyev

52-McIlrath

63-Miroshnichenko

Out/injured

15-Milano (upper body)

19-Backstrom (hip)

77-Oshie (back)

BUFFALO

Extenders

17-Zucker, 24-Cozens, 72-Thompson

77-Peterka, 71-McLeod, 89-Tuch

9-Benson, 20-Kulich, 19-Krebs

22-Quinn, 81-Lafferty, 96-Aube-Kubel

Defenders

26-Dahlin, 4-Byram

25-Power, 75-Clifton

23-Samuelsson, 10-Jokiharju

Goalkeepers

1-Luukkonen

47-Rhymes

Additional

8-Gilbert

78-Bryson

Out/injured

12-Greenway (undisclosed)

29-Malenstyn (disease)