First Cuts Today for Capitals

49 Players arrived in Washington Thursday for the kick off of this seasons training camp and preseason. Today after the first two games the team has revealed who would be going down to join the Hersey Bears. Those players are: Dmen Chris Summers, Tommy Cross, Justin Falk, Beau Schmitz, Mark Alt, Paul Postma, and Nick Jensen. Forwards Andrew Yogan, Justin Vaive, Jeremy Langlois, Ethan Werek, Danick Gauthier, Christian Thomas, Phil McRae, Sonny Milano, Zac Dalpe, Louis-Marc Aubry, Max Friberg, Jonathan Marchessault, Shane Prince, Joel Vermin, Taylor Beck. Goaltenders Matt Hackett and Anthony Stolarz.

"The first cut in camp is always the biggest. We want these guys ready for the start of the training camp in Hersey." Said GM Mitchell. "The coaching staff and I got a real good look at where these players are last game against the Bruins and despite the good showing we feel they still have some things to work on with their games. This allows us to focus in on the battles we have left here for roster spots."

The top 6 appear set on D, leaving Posser and Nesterov in camp to battle it out for the 7th spot on the roster. Last season the team kept Beau Schmitz up as the 7th Dman but he spent most of his time watching rather than playing. This year it looks as though one of these two could get some time in relief of one of the veterans like Brewer or Michalek.

Up at forward the bottom 6 is where there could be spots available. Left in camp looking to take a spot are RW Tobias Rieder and LW Brad Malone, both of whom are very different types of players. Malone is a grinder and would be relied upon to handle defensive matchups while Rieder has a lot more offense to his game and could provide some depth scoring. Both will need to play well to knock out the veterans like Patrick Dwyer or Jannik Hansen.

The last position battle in camp is for the role of back-up goantender, where last season's goalie Viktor Fasth will have to be sharp to edge out rookie Andrei Vasilevskiy who looked brilliant last night against the Bruins stopping 42 shots and came up big in the shootout.

Projected lines with position battles:

Ondrej Palat - Anze Kopitar - Justin Williams

Benoit Pouliot - Martin Hanzal - Loui Eriksson

Anders Lee - Sean Couturier - Tobias Rieder/Jannik Hansen/Patrick Dwyer

Brad Malone/Emerson Etem - Brian Boyle - Tobias Rieder/Jannik Hansen/Patrick Dwyer

Paul Martin - Justin Faulk

Fedor Tyutin - Aaron Ekblad

Eric Brewer - Zbynek Michalek

Nate Prosser/Nikita Nesterov

Roberto Luongo

Viktor Fasth/Andrei Vasilevskiy

The next game is on day 4 in Montreal. The line-up has not been released yet by the coach.