{"id":202606,"date":"2025-10-05T02:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T02:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/202606\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T02:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T02:14:08","slug":"observations-from-the-capitals-preseason-finale-a-2-1-win-over-the-columbus-blue-jackets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/202606\/","title":{"rendered":"Observations from the Capitals\u2019 preseason finale, a 2-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Capitals
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ud83d\udcf8: Dr Kat from #crashers<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Washington Capitals brought an end to their preseason schedule with a second contest against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night. The final exhibition matchup represented the last chance for some of the team\u2019s veterans to get up to game speed before the Home Opener on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

There were multiple posts and crossbars hit in the first period, but neither team could get on the board. Declan Chisholm opened the scoring in the second after a few nice feeds from Ivan Miroshnichenko and Ryan Leonard. Pierre-Luc Dubois finished off a two-on-one to extend the lead. Mathieu Olivier potted a late goal for the Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n

Observations<\/p>\n

We got our first look at the full top unit of the Capitals\u2019 power play for the first time this fall, and I thought they created a few good looks. Alex Ovechkin looks set to play the full two minutes of every man-advantage again this year, which I\u2019m still not too sure about. It feels like, at least to me, that opposing penalty kills would need to adapt on the fly more if the Capitals didn\u2019t have the obvious go-to option out there for part of the opportunity. \u2018Tis but a mere opinion of mine.
\nRyan Leonard was very involved physically again, which was good to see. He\u2019s going to take some licks but will always give them back, too. Beautiful stuff from him and Miro on Declan Chisholm\u2019s goal. Chisholm likely already had that seventh defenseman spot completely locked down and put the finishing touch on a good first preseason with the Capitals.
\nStill really like what I\u2019m seeing from Hendrix Lapierre. He\u2019s consistently doing all of the little things right. Hard to believe he, at age 23, was the \u201cveteran\u201d presence on his line with Leonard and Ivan Miroshnichenko. The team\u2019s first-round picks from 2020, 2022, and 2023 were all on a line together. Kinda cool.
\nDylan McIlrath and Matt Roy both suffered injuries in the win. McIlrath left the game during the second period, came out for warmups to start the third, played one shift, and then returned to the Capitals\u2019 locker room. He did not play any of the final period. Roy left during the third.
\nLogan Thompson looked incredibly sharp in his final tune-up appearance. I don\u2019t think the team\u2019s defensive effort in front of him was good either.
\nAfter the final preseason game, if I had it my way, the final roster spots on the team would go to Chisholm, Lapierre, Miroshnichenko, and Vincent Iorio. Sonny Milano is the tough-luck cut, but he\u2019s probably earned a shot elsewhere if another team wants to give him one. If not, he\u2019s the first recall from Hershey.<\/p>\n

The preseason is no more, praise the hockey gods. The Capitals will take Sunday off before practicing and making final roster decisions on Monday. They\u2019ll then practice again on Tuesday with their Opening Night roster before hosting the Boston Bruins the following night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ud83d\udcf8: Dr Kat from #crashers The Washington Capitals brought an end to their preseason schedule with a second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-202606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}