The Capitals find themselves in the midst of a stretch in which they are home for 11 days, but in which they play just three games at Verizon Center. The second of those three games is Thursday night when the San Jose Sharks come to call. Today was the first of two practice days the Caps have in preparation for that contest.

Although the Caps have lost four straight games (0-2-2), and are just 2-2-2 on the season despite holding the lead at some point in all six of those games, most prefer to see the glass as half-full, at least for now.

“We’ve played," begins Caps forward Brooks Laich, "with the exception Toronto, a No. 1 and a No. 2 seed. We’ve played very good hockey teams, teams that just don’t go away, teams that don’t roll over. They keep coming. We can say we have to play with the lead better, but sometimes you have to give some credit to the other team and how hard they work.

"That being said, we still believe we have a very good hockey team. And there is no reason to panic, Sure, things haven’t gone the way we wanted the last four games but if you panic you make life worse for yourself. A couple of hard days at practice, get back to the basics and we’ll be excited to play the game on Thursday."

Except for one ill-timed penalty in the third period against Detroit on Saturday and one bad shift in the third period against New Jersey on Monday, Washington's effort and performance have both been better in the last two games.

"We had one really bad shift that seems to stick out in everybody’s head," says Caps coach Bruce Boudreau of the loss to New Jersey. "They had 18 shots on goal with like eight minutes left in the third period. I’m looking at the tape this morning and we did so many good things, except get a win.

“Our record at this time last year was 3-2-1 and was 3-3-1 after the seventh game. The schedule has been really grueling and we have competed with everybody. We have had leads in every game. Mike Knuble said it yesterday, ‘These are fixable problems and it will straighten itself out.’”

Boudreau tweaked his forward lines again at Tuesday's practice, giving Brendan Morrison a go as the middle man between Alex Ovechkin and Mike Knuble. Nicklas Backstrom centered for Laich and Alexander Semin.

“You’re looking for the chemistry," offers Boudreau. "We’d like to get all four lines scoring, but definitely more than one for sure. We tinkered with today again, and you’ve known me long enough that it might change again tomorrow. This is the way I wanted to go just to see the reaction and the body language of everybody concerned because sometimes you change lines and guys go from happy to sad in a heartbeat. But I think everybody accepted it pretty well.”

Defensemen Tom Poti and John Erskine and center Boyd Gordon were not on the ice for Tuesday's practice.

"Tom Poti played 30 minutes last night and he’s older, so we just gave him the day off," says Boudreau. "John Erskine has an upper body injury at this point. He’s day to day and I check almost hourly to hourly at this point to see how he’s doing. Boyd Gordon has a history of having a sore back so we just wanted to give it a rest so it doesn’t inflame."

Notes: Hershey goaltender Michal Neuvirth (hip) has been given the go-ahead to resume play this weekend, so the Bears have reassigned goaltender Braden Holtby to the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL. Holby got into three games with the Bears, posting a 2-1 mark, a 1.01 GAA a .967 save pct. and a shutout. The Stingrays open their season this Friday when they host Wheeling.