Washington reunion for Grubauer and Burakovsky

WAS H IN G TON» In obscure roles, Philipp Grubauer and Andre Burakovsky helped the Washington Capitals win the Stanley Cup in 2018.

Grubauer finished as the Caps’ backup goaltender after he started the first two playoff games. And Burakovsky was a depth winger, playing in 13 of 24 playoff games.

On Monday, they return to Washington as front-line players for the 4-0 Avalanche. Grubauer is Colorado’s clear-cut No. 1 goalie and will make his fourth start.

And Burakovsky is one of the Avs’ top-six wingers and has scored a goal in each of his past two games, including a gamewinner in overtime to defeat Arizona at the Pepsi Center on Saturday night.

He’s off to a good start with the Avs, with four points in four games.

“I wouldn’t consider myself a hero,” Burakovsky said after Saturday’s win that gave Colorado a sweep of its season-opening, four-game homestand. “This was a team effort. It wasn’t my prettiest game, but it was nice to get on the board and get the team a win. We stuck with it.”

He added: “The last two games haven’t been the prettiest, but this team has the character to stick with it and get wins anyway. We’re going to learn from this and keep going. There’s always going to be games where we need to be more careful with puck, and (Saturday) was one of those nights.”

Footnotes.

Colorado rookie Cale Makar is the first defenseman in franchise history to produce points in each of his first four career regular-season games. Makar, who made his NHL debut with the Avs last spring in the playoffs, is tied with center Nathan MacKinnon with a teamhigh five assists. … The Caps are beginning a three-game homestand and playing a Central Division opponent for the third consecutive game. They split a twogame road trip last week, losing 6-5 at Nashville before winning 4-1 at Dallas….The Avs didn’t practice or have media availability Sunday before departing for Washington.