Capitals Notebook: Dowd, Oshie Traveling For West Coast Swing, Pilon Earns Call Up

The Washington Capitals are set to carry a four-game winning streak into a busy est Coast swing that’ll include tilts with southern California teams and their first meeting with the Seattle Kraken.

They got good news on Monday as Nic Dowd and T.J. Oshie will travel with the team on their road trip as they continue their recovery, per The Athletic‘s Tarik El-Bashir. Dowd is currently dealing with an injury he suffered earlier in the year. He appeared to go down in the Nov. 8 win over the Buffalo Sabres and pushed himself to the bench off his left skate. He wasn’t putting much weight on his right foot as he went down the tunnel.

Dowd just signed a three-year extension with the Capitals on Sunday.

READ MORE ON WHN: Dowd Reflects On Three-Year Extension With Capitals

Oshie, meanwhile, is working back from a lower-body injury suffered in an Oct. 27 showdown with the Detroit Red Wings. He had been in a walking boot after appearing to hurt his foot while blocking a shot from Dylan DeKeyser.

Both remain on the injured reserve but hit the ice prior to Sunday’s morning skate in full gear.

Nicklas Backstrom, meanwhile, will remain in D.C. He has also been skating in full gear under the supervision of strength and conditioning coach Mark Nemish, and he was skating on Sunday as well.

Anthony Mantha remains off the ice and is out indefinitely after getting shoulder surgery and being injured in Washington’s Nov. 4 game against the Florida Panthers.

The Capitals, meanwhile, are bringing yet another young forward on board for their road trip. They recalled Garret Pilon from the AHL’s Hershey Bears on Monday. The 23-year-old center currently leads Hershey with 11 points and gives the Capitals an extra forward. He joins call-ups Brett Leason, Aliaksei Protas and Axel Jonsson-Fjallby.

The team is still relying on its young players and rookies to lead the charge with three top-6 players missing and one of their key pivots, utility forwards and top penalty killers in Dowd on the shelf.

“I think the guys have done a really good job, the guys that have come up. I think the guys that have been here, the core of the team that’s in the lineup, not out of the lineup, the guys that have been in there, they’ve really made it a point to make sure that we’re moving right,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “From that point, you need young guys chipping in… guys are coming in and contributing, which is exactly what you need when you have an injury. We’ll get through this, and I think those young guys keep contributing and playing the way they are, it just takes the burden off a little bit.”