Capitals may be unable to field a full lineup due to salary cap and injury issues.

The Washington Capitals may be dealing with some very serious issues, issues that could prevent them from fielding a full lineup moving forward.

The Capitals are currently right up against the salary cap with no room to spare and a number of injuries that have now impacted their roster have left the team with less than 18 skaters in the lineup. Now this wouldn't be as big of a problem if the Capitals had a few days off to rest and potentially get some bodies back into the lineup, but they have a game scheduled this evening against the New York Rangers and there are now some real questions about how they will navigate this problem.

Capitals reporter JJ Regan of NBC Washington is now reporting that he believes the Capitals lack the necessary cap space to make any additional call ups to the roster, a situation that he believes could force the Capitals to play with 17 or fewer players against the Rangers. Regan's comments were made with the assumption that Alexander Ovechkin, T.J. Oshie and John Carlson will all remain sidelined due to injury, so it is possible that one or more of those players could return this evening and remedy the issues. The Capitals have made no announcement of any kind on that front however, so we will have to wait and see.