There is only one new face on the ice for the Caps this morning, and that is Graham Mink. Mink is a natural right wing, something the Caps are short on without Chris Clark and Alexander Semin. Boyd Gordon is also out there, so it looks like he will play tonight against Florida. Tom Poti was on the ice for a few minutes before practice in an orange jersey. John Erskine is out there now with his teammates. Mike Green, Semin and Sergei Fedorov are all also out there.

Here are the forward lines:

Ovechkin-Backstrom-Kozlov

Fleischmann-Nylander-Bradley

Laich-Steckel-Fehr

Brashear-Gordon-Mink

Also, here are a couple of notes from talking to general manager George McPhee yesterday:

• Michal Neuvirth had appendicitis "or some sort of attack" during his short stay in the Czech Republic. He was in the hospital, and the Caps decided they wanted him here in North America. That's a big part of why he ended up in South Carolina and not still with the Czech Republic club. McPhee said he could still be loaned out to another AHL club, but he didn't make it sound like they were pursuing that action. He said the organization is happy that both Neuvirth and Simeon Varlamov are playing a lot and both are playing well.

• A couple of the players alluded to the team's grueling November schedule (15 games in 30 days, a stretch of 7 games in 11 days) as a potential reason for the rash of injuries. McPhee said when the schedule was released by the league he was not happy and tried to get it changed.

• McPhee on the rash of injuries: "I think we had a tough stretch one time before, but I can’t remember what year it was. I remember The Hockey News came out with a cartoon that was our logo, the eagle logo, but it was all bandaged up."

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