The Washington Capitals have several players ailing with minor injuries headed into tonight\u2019s showdown with the Chicago Blackhawks, including center Justin Sourdif.<\/p>\n
Sourdif missed the team\u2019s optional morning skate at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, prompting lineup questions for head coach Spencer Carbery. The team had the day off on Friday after playing back-to-back matinee games against the New York Rangers and Ottawa Senators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think [Sourdif will be good to go],\u201d Carbery said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a few game-times, so we\u2019ll know more tonight, but hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sourdif is arguably coming off the two best games of his NHL career, in which he made an impact both physically and on the scoreboard. In Wednesday\u2019s 6-3 victory over the New York Rangers, Sourdif recorded his first career multi-goal game<\/a>, scoring his first career power-play goal and his first career empty-net goal.<\/p>\n The 23-year-old rookie followed that performance up with his most physical game to date, dropping Ottawa Senators\u2019 defenseman Thomas Chabot with a massive hit behind the net and then accepting a fight with Drake Batherson<\/a> \u2014 his first career bout in the NHL. He also had two assists in the Capitals\u2019 4-3 loss to the Senators, including a primary assist on Aliaksei Protas\u2019s game-tying goal late in the third period, giving him points on two of the Caps\u2019 three tallies on the day.<\/p>\n Carbery did not reveal any of the other names working to get healthy enough to play the Blackhawks. One of those names could be Protas, who missed some of Washington\u2019s loss to the Senators after defenseman Artem Zub sent him crashing into the boards with a dangerous trip in Thursday\u2019s first period.<\/p>\n Logan Thompson was the first goaltender off the ice for the Capitals, so he will make his second start in January after taking the loss to Ottawa. Thompson has won just one of his last five starts, allowing four or more goals in all four losses.<\/p>\n The Blackhawks will still be without star center Connor Bedard, who has been out since December 12 with an upper-body injury. With Bedard out, they are led in scoring by Tyler Bertuzzi (30 points) and former Capitals winger Andre Burakovsky (25 points). Chicago sits 14th in the Western Conference, above only the Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets.<\/p>\n The Capitals have won their last three home games against Chicago and have earned at least one point in 13 straight home games against the Blackhawks (11-0-2), dating back to the 2005-06 season. Per the team, that 13-game home point streak is tied for the third-longest active streak by a team against a single opponent in the NHL<\/a>.<\/p>\n Puck drop at Capital One Arena is set for 7 pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals have several players ailing with minor injuries headed into tonight\u2019s showdown with the Chicago Blackhawks,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-386394","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\/386394","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=386394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}