Neuvirth Sent Home

The Capitals may be facing a goalie dilemma, as Michal Neuvirth has been sent back to Washington, while the team continues to travel on their current road trip, to get a lower-body injury assessed.  Neuvirth was hurt in the Capitals game against the Flyers on Tuesday night, having to bring in Semyon Varlamov to finish the game.  For the time being, I'll have to say that Neuvirth will be day-to-day with his injury, until there is an actual update on his condition.

The team has called Braden Holtby from the Hershey Bears of the AHL to fill in for Neuvirth and may get to see some action immediately.

Neuvirth has appeared in 29 games for the Capitals this season, having a 15-6-4 record with 1 shutout, giving him 32 points in the pool, ranking 93rd in the league in scoring, which is also good enough for 20th among all goalies in the league.  For the most part, Neuvirth has split the season with Varlamov, taking a small majority of the starts in the end, out playing his Russian teammate in minutes, 1,597 to 1,052.

Neuvirth was a 9th round selection of the tandem team of Kristy and Don, picking him 164th overall.  Even with splitting time in the crease, Neuvirth has turned into quite the bargain for the duo, who are currently sitting in 2nd spot, thanks in part to the playing success of Neuvirth.

Kristy and Don currently sit 2 points out of 1st place through Tuesday's action in the league, having an extra skater game in the week to play with on Allan S., who sits atop the standings.  Missing key starts from Neuvirth may be detrimental to the duo's bid for top spot, but their other goalie, Jonas Hiller should fill in nicely.

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