Capitals then placed four players on waivers<\/a> for the purpose of assignment to Hershey: forwards Spencer Smallman and Jonny Brodzinski, defenseman Louie Belpedio and goaltender Clay Stevenson. The Winnipeg Jets claimed Stevenson. Brodzinski scored in his lone exhibition appearance after posting 16 points in 55 games with the Rangers last season. Stevenson did not play in the preseason.<\/p>\nLogan Thompson opened the exhibition slate against Boston, turning aside all seven shots he faced in the first period of a 3-2 shootout loss at TD Garden. He is coming off a 31-21-6 season with a 2.44 goals-against average, a .912 save percentage, four shutouts and a fourth-place finish in Vezina Trophy voting. Washington also appears on Dylan Larkin\u2019s expanded eight-team trade list, though the Capitals carry less than $200,000 in cap space. <\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Lightning News & Notes<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay hosted Florida at Benchmark Arena on Sept. 24 for the first preseason Battle of Florida of the 2026-27 season and lost 5-3. New Panthers forward Bokondji Imama opened the scoring, while Jansen Harkins answered with two goals for the Lightning. That meeting was the only one of Florida\u2019s four exhibition games without a fight. The second Tampa game did feature one, with Panthers forward Sam Lafferty dropping the gloves. Panthers goaltender Akira Schmid was solid against the Lightning. <\/p>\n
The Lightning have surfaced in trade speculation around Detroit captain Dylan Larkin, who expanded his trade list from three teams to eight. Tampa Bay joins Dallas, Washington, Colorado, Minnesota, Vegas, Florida and one unnamed club on that list. Any deal would require significant cap maneuvering given the asking price, though organizations on the list that consider themselves contenders have been identified as logical fits. Detroit general manager Shawn Horcoff must work within those parameters. <\/p>\n
Washington Capitals Projected Lines<\/p>\n
Line 1: Alex Tuch \u2013 Pierre-Luc Dubois \u2013 Tom Wilson<\/p>\n
Line 2: Alex Ovechkin \u2013 Dylan Strome \u2013 Ryan Leonard<\/p>\n
Line 3: Aliaksei Protas \u2013 Ilya Protas \u2013 Jordan Kyrou<\/p>\n
Line 4: Boone Jenner \u2013 Justin Sourdif \u2013 Anthony Beauvillier<\/p>\n
Pair 1: Jakob Chychrun \u2013 Matt Roy<\/p>\n
Pair 2: Cole Hutson \u2013 Vincent Desharnais<\/p>\n
Pair 3: Martin Fehervary \u2013 Timothy Liljegren<\/p>\n
Goaltenders: Logan Thompson \u2013 Charlie Lindgren<\/p>\n
Washington Capitals Special Teams<\/p>\n
Power play, First unit: Tom Wilson \u2013 Dylan Strome \u2013 Pierre-Luc Dubois \u2013 Alex Ovechkin \u2013 Jakob Chychrun<\/p>\n
Power play, Second unit: Alex Tuch \u2013 Ilya Protas \u2013 Ryan Leonard \u2013 Cole Hutson \u2013 Jordan Kyrou<\/p>\n
Penalty kill, First unit: Aliaksei Protas \u2013 Tom Wilson \u2013 Martin Fehervary \u2013 Vincent Desharnais<\/p>\n
Penalty kill, Second unit: Pierre-Luc Dubois \u2013 Anthony Beauvillier \u2013 Jakob Chychrun \u2013 Matt Roy<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines<\/p>\n
Line 1: Ilya Mikheyev \u2013 Brayden Point \u2013 Nikita Kucherov<\/p>\n
Line 2: Brandon Hagel \u2013 Anthony Cirelli \u2013 Jake Guentzel<\/p>\n
Line 3: Jeffrey Viel \u2013 Zemgus Girgensons \u2013 Pontus Holmberg<\/p>\n
Line 4: Gage Goncalves \u2013 Jansen Harkins \u2013 Conor Geekie<\/p>\n
Pair 1: J.J. Moser \u2013 John Carlson<\/p>\n
Pair 2: Victor Hedman \u2013 Charle-Edouard D\u2019Astous<\/p>\n
Pair 3: Ryan McDonagh \u2013 Erik Cernak<\/p>\n
Goaltenders: Andrei Vasilevskiy \u2013 Dennis Hildeby<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Lightning Special Teams<\/p>\n
Power play, First unit: Jake Guentzel \u2013 Brayden Point \u2013 Nikita Kucherov \u2013 Brandon Hagel \u2013 John Carlson<\/p>\n
Power play, Second unit: Pontus Holmberg \u2013 Anthony Cirelli \u2013 Gage Goncalves \u2013 Conor Geekie \u2013 Charle-Edouard D\u2019Astous<\/p>\n
Penalty kill, First unit: Anthony Cirelli \u2013 Brandon Hagel \u2013 Ryan McDonagh \u2013 Erik Cernak<\/p>\n
Penalty kill, Second unit: Zemgus Girgensons \u2013 Ilya Mikheyev \u2013 Victor Hedman \u2013 J.J. Moser<\/p>\n
Players To Watch<\/p>\n
Jakob Chychrun \u2014 Washington Capitals<\/p>\n
Chychrun put up a goal and an assist on three shots in 18:51 last time out, the kind of all-situations workload that keeps him in play for defenseman point props. With Rasmus Sandin on injured reserve, the minutes behind him only get heavier, and he was already firing from the point.<\/p>\n
Nikita Kucherov \u2014 Tampa Bay Lightning<\/p>\n
Kucherov scored on his lone shot last game while logging 24:07, a heavy night even by first-line standards. Box Score Junkie has him at a 64.6% Corsi-for and 77.1 shot attempts for per 60 through the early 2026-27 season, so the territorial edge is there whenever he\u2019s over the boards.<\/p>\n
Injury Report<\/p>\n
Washington Capitals<\/p>\n
Patrick Thomas (C) \u2014 Injured Reserve, Upper Body, expected back Saturday, October 3<\/p>\n
Rasmus Sandin (D) \u2014 Injured Reserve, Knee, expected back Saturday, December 26<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Lightning<\/p>\n
Yanni Gourde (C) \u2014 Injured Reserve, Hip, expected back Wednesday, December 2<\/p>\n
Dominic James (C) \u2014 Injured Reserve, Hand, expected back Tuesday, October 13<\/p>\n
Injury information via ESPN.<\/p>\n
Next Up<\/p>\n
Washington Capitals: host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday, October 7.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Lightning: host the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday, October 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Photo: AP Photo\/Nick Wass) The Washington Capitals visit the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena on Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5114],"tags":[73000,27417,191,5,5236,284,25748,3714,907,4,5573,1335,92,190,109,5222],"class_list":["post-677721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-capitals","tag-2026-27-nhl-regular-season","tag-benchmark-international-arena","tag-capitals","tag-hockey","tag-injury-report","tag-jakob-chychrun","tag-jansen-harkins","tag-line-combinations","tag-logan-thompson","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-game-preview","tag-nikita-kucherov","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-washington","tag-washington-capitals","tag-washingtoncapitals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117377449998277362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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