The Washington Capitals hit the ice for practice with new acquisition Anthony Beauvillier for the first time on Saturday morning. The Caps sent the Pittsburgh Penguins a second-round pick for Beauvillier at Friday’s trade deadline.
Head coach Spencer Carbery immediately inserted the 27-year-old winger into the lineup. Per NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti, Beauvillier is set to start on the Capitals’ fourth line and skate with Nic Dowd and Brandon Duhaime.
Lines
Beauvillier has 20 points (13g, 7a) in 63 games for the Penguins this season. His role with Washington on their ultra-defensive fourth line will be much different than what he left in Pittsburgh, which was second-line duty playing with Evgeni Malkin.
At five-on-five this season, Dowd has started his shifts a team low 11.32 percent in the offensive zone. The Dowd and Duhaime combination has taken 328 defensive-zone faceoffs compared to just 51 in the offensive zone.
“I think he’ll be a good fit to our style of play, the pace he plays with, some of the attention to detail stuff that we require our guys to play with,” Carbery said post practice. “We’ll put him with Dowd and Dewey right out of the gate, which you may look at and say, well, he’s fourth-line wing. But as everybody knows, Dowd’s line doesn’t play much like a fourth line. They play a lot more minutes than that.
“And Dowd and Dewey are really good players to play with to get him integrated into our group. They talk a ton. Not only on the ice, but off the ice, on the bench. So I think it’s a good starting point for Anthony, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
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While Carbery has Beauvillier slated to start on the fourth line, he spoke about the Quebec native’s ability to adapt to whatever role his line is asked to play.
“He had, I’m going to guess, 40 different line combinations that he’s played with this year in Pittsburgh, which is, I didn’t even know you could make that many lines with as many forwards as we have,” Carbery said. “Versatility, can play both wings. And that, I think, is a really undervalued quality of a player like him of understanding, ‘Okay, I’m playing on this line. Here’s the things I need to do tonight at a high level.’ So, that’s a real luxury.”
Carbery also pointed out that Beauvillier and Lars Eller spent some time together on a line with the Penguins before Pittsburgh shipped Eller back to the Capitals in November. The two shared the ice for a very successful 45:40 of five-on-five ice time, seeing 50.7 percent of the shot attempts, 57.1 percent of the expected goals, 53.6 percent of the scoring chances, and 60.5 percent of the high-danger chances.
With Beauvillier being inserted into the lineup, Ethen Frank participated as an extra. Frank is set to be a healthy scratch for the first time since the Capitals recalled him from the AHL’s Hershey Bears on January 10.
“Right now he’s kind of going through a little bit of a funk in his game,” Carbery said. “He was so good and so impressive when he got here – and now he’s hit a bit of a downturn. And that’s going to happen. It’s totally understandable for a young player coming into this league.
“Just getting back to some foundational things that have slipped a little bit, that don’t take any puck luck. They’re just work and focus-based things. He’s such a coachable young man, and he evaluates his game. He takes coaching, he wants to get better, and it gives you confidence as a coach that he’s going to fix those areas or get back on track. I have no doubt.”
Frank has seven points (4g, 3a) in his first 22 NHL games. He started his NHL career on a three-game point streak but has cooled off significantly since then, recording four points (2g, 2a) in his last 19 games.
With the trade deadline now passed, Frank is with the Capitals for the rest of their season. Since he was not on Hershey’s roster at the deadline, he is not eligible to play in this year’s Calder Cup playoffs.