{"id":358688,"date":"2025-12-19T20:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T20:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358688\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T20:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T20:33:08","slug":"ryan-leonard-is-full-participant-in-capitals-practice-takes-contact-in-one-on-one-battle-drills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358688\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Leonard is full participant in Capitals practice, takes contact in one-on-one battle drills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ryan Leonard looks like he could be back in the Washington Capitals\u2019 lineup sooner than expected.<\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old winger was a full participant in the team\u2019s practice on Friday, shedding the no-contact jersey that he <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2025\/12\/18\/ryan-leonard-returns-injury-no-contact-jersey-capitals-practice\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wore at Thursday\u2019s morning skate<\/a>. Leonard, who is still on injured reserve with a shoulder injury, also went through one-on-one battle drills with fellow rookie Bogdan Trineyev during the skate.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard taking contact again so soon suggests he could be back in game action well before his <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2025\/12\/11\/ryan-leonard-injury-3-4-weeks-shoulder-face\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced projected recovery timeline of three to four weeks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, just another step in his progression to coming back,\u201d head coach Spencer Carbery said Friday afternoon. \u201cMoves into now where he\u2019s able to get in and around other players, take a little bit of contact, so he\u2019ll just continue to progress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Carbery declined to answer whether Leonard could play as soon as this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going to be non-committal to his timeline,\u201d he said. \u201cI haven\u2019t talked to Serbs (head athletic trainer Jason Serbus) today. I\u2019ll just leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Leonard <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2025\/12\/05\/jacob-trouba-headshot-ryan-leonard-no-penalty\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was injured on December 5 by a hit from Anaheim Ducks defenseman Jacob Trouba<\/a>, and he has missed the past five games for the Capitals. In those games, the Capitals are 2-2-1.<\/p>\n<p>Two days after the injury, Leonard was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2025\/12\/08\/ryan-leonard-injury-arm-sling-capitals-locker-room\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">spotted wearing a sling<\/a> in the Capitals\u2019 locker room during the team\u2019s postgame celebration. Leonard has recorded 18 points (7g, 11a) in 29 games this season, which still ranks fourth among all NHL rookies.<\/p>\n<p>The Capitals play the Detroit Red Wings in a home-and-home back-to-back over the next two days. They start on home ice at Capital One Arena on Saturday afternoon, then travel to Detroit for another matinee matchup on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>If Leonard is healthy enough to play, he could go up against his older brother, John Leonard, who the Red Wings recalled from the AHL\u2019s Grand Rapids Griffins earlier this week. He had an assist on Detroit\u2019s lone goal against the Utah Mammoth on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Leonard looks like he could be back in the Washington Capitals\u2019 lineup sooner than expected. The 20-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-358688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358688","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=358688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}