ARLINGTON, V.A. — Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery was blunt as he assessed Jakub Vrana on Wednesday, not hiding from the fact that the preseason tilt against the New Jersey Devils could very well be a do-or-die matchup for No. 13.
After stumbling through his preseason debut and posting a minus-3 back on Sunday, it's clutch time for the Czech forward, who faces a tall task with time seemingly running out on his professional tryout agreement: set himself apart by any means possible.
Why? Because no only truly has yet through camp, including the Capitals' 2014 first-round pick.
"I’ll be totally honest with you, in that competition for that 12, 13, there hasn’t been a lot of separation thus far through camp," Carbery said. "And I know there are six preseason games and we’re two in, but it’s starting to get to the point where you can see those last two games being very close to our opening night lineup, so you’re running out of bullets in the chamber."
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Vrana is competing for a roster spot along with the likes of Ivan Miroshnichenko and long-shot Andrew Cristall, who either has to make the NHL out of camp or head back down to juniors for another year of development since he's too young for the AHL, as well as Ethen Frank, Bogdan Trineyev and Pierrick Dubé.
"I don’t think anyone has necessarily played themselves out of (a spot); what I haven’t seen is someone take the bull by the horns and own that spot and go 'Holy,'" Carbery said. "I.e. Matt Phillips last year. Couldn't keep him out of our lineup because of the way he played and practiced day after day after day, game after game."
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Vrana will play on the third line with Mike Sgarbossa and Alex Limoges. On that trio, Carbery wants to see the 28-year-old take control and not just put up offense, but impress at both ends of the ice to really force the coaching staff's hand.
"We’re going to need him to do something significant tonight. It’s not about scoring. Does that help? For sure it does. I’m not saying that doesn’t help, but he’s got to be good in other areas, too," Carbery said. "He’s got to be around the puck, he’s got to have o-zone shifts. He can’t be spending 75 percent of his shifts in the defensive zone and us walk out of the game and go. 'Wow Vrana, that’s not gonna cut it.'”
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