{"id":938488,"date":"2026-10-23T21:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T21:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/938488\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T21:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T21:18:16","slug":"tuch-will-have-big-dumb-smile-for-first-game-against-sabres-for-capitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/938488\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuch will have ‘big, dumb smile’ for first game against Sabres for Capitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuch has fit well in a Capitals locker room that has a mix of veterans, including forwards Alex Ovechkin<\/a>, 41, and Tom Wilson<\/a>, 32, and young players such as forwards Ryan Leonard<\/a>, 21, and Ilya Protas<\/a>, 20, and\u00a0defenseman Cole Hutson<\/a>, 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a guy that\u2019s very versatile,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cHe’s got so many different tools that allow him to be, obviously, a premier player in the League. So I think whoever he plays with, he makes them better. He can do it on his own. He can share the puck. He can score goals. He’s good defensively. He’s just kind of a well-rounded guy that can be deployed in kind of any situation. Smart, smart player.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tuch, who was acquired by the Sabres in the trade that sent center Jack Eichel<\/a>\u00a0to the Vegas Golden Knights on Nov. 4, 2021, expects the spotlight to be on him more Saturday than it was the first time he played against the Golden Knights with the Sabres on Feb. 1, 2022. Though Tuch went to the Stanley Cup Final with the Golden Knights in 2018 (before losing to the Capitals), most of the attention during his return to Vegas was on Eichel, who had requested a trade from the Sabres following a disagreement on how to treat a herniated disk in his neck.<\/p>\n

As a veteran, Tuch also had a much stronger connection with most of the players in Buffalo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Vegas, I was treated as a younger guy, and in Buffalo, now moving on or getting traded-slash-moving on as an older guy is a little bit different,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of guys that I’ve mentored there on Buffalo, and I spent a lot of time with, and we were a really close group. It will be a little bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n

There will also be something familiar about it, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve gone in corners with those guys in practice so many times it’s going to feel normal,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m waiting to see who’s the first one that’s going to give me a little cheap shot. My money’s on \u2018Benny\u2019 (forward Zach Benson<\/a>), but, no, it’ll be good. It’ll feel a little different for sure. \u2026 I know everyone’s tendencies, but they all know my tendencies, too. So it’ll be interesting for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuch has fit well in a Capitals locker room that has a mix of veterans, including forwards Alex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-938488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}