Fehervary moves up the ranks

20-year-old part of 2nd defensive pairing with Orlov on Saturday

WASHINGTON — Capitals defenseman Martin Fehervary played in a top-four role Saturday night against the Philadelphia Flyers, replacing Nick Jensen on the second pair with Dmitry Orlov.

Jensen was a healthy scratch.

Capitals coach Todd Reirden said the move was made primarily to see more of Fehervary after his play versus the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.

Against the Kings, Fehervary played on the third pair with Radko Gudas while Jonas Siegenthaler was the healthy scratch.

Fehervary said he felt “pretty good” Tuesday.

“Great opportunity,” Fehervary said. “Like you said, at the beginning of the season there were some injuries and it is a great opportunity for me to get into the lineup. I’m really happy about this chance.”

Reirden said the plan was to have Fehervary play on the left and Orlov on the right, which is Orlov’s off side. Fehervary said he is comfortable playing on either side, whereas Orlov has mainly played on his natural left side during his career with the Capitals.

Fehervary, 20, has appeared in four games with the Capitals this season.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound rookie has averaged 15 minutes, 51 seconds of ice time per game and recorded a 54.10 shot-attempt percentage (52 shot attempts for, 44 against) at five-on-five.

Fehervary has played 45 games with Hershey this season, posting 14 points (four goals, 10 assists).

“[We are] just [continuing] to evaluate him and see where he is, and that is really what we are doing: taking inventory of where our defense is at,” Reirden said. “[It is] not so much about taking somebody out [but] seeing what we have.

“I think we [can] get into a rotation that way.”

The forward lines shuffled as well for Saturday’s game.

Tom Wilson was bumped to the second line as T.J. Oshie was elevated to the top line alongside Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin, who entered the game just two goals shy of 700 for his career. The line switch was made at the start of the third period of Tuesday’s game in hopes that it would create a spark.

Reirden liked the way the combinations looked and continued to use them in practice throughout the week. When asked, Oshie acknowledged there is a little extra juice being on Ovechkin’s line with the milestone at stake.

“I think Tom’s normally on the line, but with me squeezing in there, obviously you want to try to get [Ovechkin] the puck. [but] I probably won’t do it as well as Tom will,” Oshie said. “It’s just such a special thing and I think we all agree he’s going to move on and probably reach different numbers.

“But 700 is a pretty amazing amount of goals. So as teammates you want to support him and try to help get him there and hopefully do it at home.”

When he reaches that total, Ovechkin will become only the eighth player in NHL history to do so.

Braden Holtby was in the net against the Flyers. The plan was to use Holtby on Saturday and Ilya Samonsov on Monday against the New York Islanders, but Reirden said that is “subject to change.”