Nic Dowd’s move to third line was made in part to get Ryan Leonard more ice time: ‘No doubt he’s going to be playing 15, 20 minutes before you know it’

Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery made a few changes to his lineup in the team’s 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night. Perhaps the most notable was moving Nic Dowd up from his usual fourth-line role to the third line alongside Ryan Leonard and Anthony Beauvillier.

Carbery spoke about the move and how it was made, in part, to give Leonard more ice time early on Wednesday with 106.7 The Fan’s Sports Junkies. The Capitals will be set up the same way up front when they take on the Edmonton Oilers.

“Part of the reason we did that was to get Leno a little bit more ice,” Carbery said. “Leno is an incredible player and talented, and going to be a great player in this league for a long, long time. There is no doubt about that. He does three or four things every game that guys cannot do on our roster. He creates something, and it looks great, and right now, they’re not going in for him. The production isn’t quite there, but he’s generating great looks. That’s a positive thing.”

Leonard recently had his best game as a pro against the Florida Panthers, playing 15:08 of ice time and firing seven shots on goal, the most he has recorded in a single game. He has only played more than 15 minutes in a game three times this season.

Of the 37 rookie forwards in the NHL this season, Leonard ranks just 17th in average time on ice (12:50). He increased his average with 13:40 of ice time alongside Dowd and Beauvillier against the Kings.

In 19 total games, the 20-year-old winger has recorded eight points (3g, 5a). Leonard ranks behind just Tom Wilson (18), Dylan Strome (16), Alex Ovechkin (15), and Aliaksei Protas (11) in scoring among all of the Capitals’ forwards. While his highs have been high, Carbery is also more concerned with rounding out Leonard’s overall game so he can be an effective player for the Caps in all situations.

“As a young player, there’s more than just making something happen offensively,” Carbery said. “That’s what we’re working with him on, so that we can be a winning team and he can be out there on the ice and not miss any coverage or not make a poor decision with the puck. When the game’s 2-2, we need to make really, really good decisions because there’s only eight minutes left in the game and it’s really, really tight, and if we turn a puck over at our blue line here in a 2-2 game, it could cost us two points.

“For young players, it is not an easy league to make the right decisions 90 percent of the time and make the right reads 90 percent of the time. So that’s all it is. He’s getting better and better and better, and it’s just us working with him and making sure that those good habits and good reads are being ingrained in his game early on in the season. And there’s no doubt he’s going to be playing 15, 20 minutes before you know it.”

One thing Leonard has needed no instruction about during his first full season in the NHL is firing the puck at the net.

The 2023 first-round pick has recorded 22.2 shot attempts per 60 minutes this season, which ranks second on the Capitals, behind just Ovechkin (23.6). In the overall league ranks, Leonard is 8th, ahead of star names like Nikita Kucherov (22.1), Jason Robertson (21.8), Nathan MacKinnon (21.2), Jack Hughes (21.2), Filip Forsberg (20.0), and Auston Matthews (19.9).

Leonard’s 37 shots rank fourth-most among all rookie skaters and sixth among Capitals forwards.