Caps practice is just underway. There is news today. The Caps sent defenseman Sami Lepisto back to Hershey and signed Bears forward Jay Beagle to a two-year contract.

Lepisto has been a healthy scratch of late and a clean bill of health for John Erskine means Lepisto can go back to playing big minutes with the Bears. Beagle was in camp this summer and has been playing with Hershey on an AHL contract.

Matt Cooke and Eric Fehr have switched places, but that move was made during the game last night. Bruce Boudreau is looking for a guy to go get the puck in the corners on the second line. I think Fehr has been playing pretty well the past couple games, but Cooke does add a little more fiestiness to the second unit.

Alex Ovechkin and Sergei Fedorov are not practicing, and neither is Chris Clark. The goalies are Olie Kolzig and Brent Johnson, which could mean Cristobal Huet would be in net tomorrow night for the fifth time in six games.

Here are the forward lines:

Laing (in place of Ovechkin)-Backstrom-Kozlov
Semin-Cooke
Fleischmann-Laich-Fehr
Brashear-Gordon-Bradley

In the drill going on right now the 'D' pairings are:

Morrisonn-Green
Schultz-Poti
Erskine-Jurcina
Eminger

- Corey Masisak