Ovechkin Dealing With Lower-Body Injury, Misses Capitals’ Tilt With Vegas

As the Washington Capitals take on the Vegas Golden Knights in their second game of a three-game road swing, they will be without the services of captain Alex Ovechkin.

Ovechkin will miss his first game of the season and won't play on Saturday in Vegas, as he has been listed as day t-to-day with a lower-body injury. where he captured the franchise's first Stanley Cup back in 2018. He did not take part in the morning skate at T-Mobile Arena due to maintenance and had been listed as a game-time decision.

Through 48 games this season, Ovechkin has 30 goals and 22 assists for 52 points. Last week, he tied Mike Gartner for the most 30-goal seasons in NHL history (17) with his 810th career goal. The 37-year-old sits 85 red lights away from breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time goals record.

Ovechkin is set to take part in the 2023 NHL All-Star Weekend on Feb. 3-4 in South Florida. He intends to attend and participate in the festivities this year after missing last year's ASG due to COVID-19 and sitting out the previous two seasons.

With Ovechkin out, Anthony Mantha will return to the lineup after back-to-back healthy scratches. Mantha has been scratched for four of the last six games and will draw in on Ovechkin's line alongside Dylan Strome and Nicolas Aube-Kubel. The rest of the lines will remain the same, as head coach Peter Laviolette has liked the combinations over these last two games — especially the Sonny Milano-Nicklas Backstrom-Tom Wilson trio.

Here are the Capitals' lines against the Golden Knights:

Anthony Mantha-Dylan Strome-Nicolas Aube-Kubel

Sonny Milano-Nicklas Backstrom-Tom Wilson

Conor Sheary-Lars Eller-T.J. Oshie

Marcus Johansson-Evgeny Kuznetsov-Garnet Hathaway

Erik Gustafsson-Trevor van Riemsdyk

Dmitry Orlov-Nick Jensen

Alex Alexeyev-Martin Fehervary

Darcy Kuemper will get the start, while Charlie Lindgren will back up. Aliaksei Protas and Matt Irwin are the healthy scratches.