With a disappointing road trip through western Canada in the rear view, Barry Trotz and the Caps hope to recapture the magic with a home game against Detroit. The Caps’ lines are all-new, and a familiar face might be returning to action. There’s a lot to look forward to, but the game is on NBCSN, so… uh… Pierre McGuire is back? Puck drop a little after 7:30.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 4-2-2 | 54.0% | 102.3 | 25.9% | 80.0% |
| Detroit Red Wings | 4-2-2 | 52.3% | 98.9 | 6.7% | 96.2% |
Projected Lineup
Deep breaths, everybody. Everything exploded. Courtesy of Adam Vingan:
Ovechkin – Burakovsky – Ward
Johansson – Backstrom – Brouwer
Chimera – Kuznetsov – Beagle
O’Brien – Latta – Fehr/Wilson
Orpik – Carlson
Alzner – Niskanen
Schmidt – Green
Holtby
Best Thing of the Day
So sick of mid-term politics. Signs go down Tuesday night. If you see one still up after Wednesday, you are legally required to set it on fire.
Storylines
- Mike Green is back on the first power-play unit. This is very good.
- Eric Fehr, who has been the team’s most shooty forward since October 10th, is either gonna be scratched or Tom Wilson won’t make his debut just yet. It’s just one game, but that’s kinda bad.
- Still not as bad as Detroit’s power play. Only Buffalo is worse. The PuckBuddys tackled this in their game of the week story.
- Adam Stringham has some ideas for lines he’d like you to see.
- Eventually Trotz wants to put Tom Wilson, last season’s most disadvantaged rookie, on a line with Backstrom and Ovechkin. Yeah, and I want a pony.
- Tonight is Matt Niskanen‘s 500th game. It’s like every game is a milestone lately.
- The enemy’s lines:
Lines at skate at Verizon Center: Abdelkader-Zetterberg-Nyquist, Helm-Datsyuk-Tatar, Nestrasil-Sheahan-Jurco, Miller-Glendening-Andersson.
— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) October 29, 2014
Also looks like no changes to D pairs: Kronwall-Ericsson, Quincey-DeKeyser, Smith-Kindl. Cleary and Lashoff extras. Franzen (IR) is skating.
— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) October 29, 2014
What You’re Missing on TV
On a very special episode of Arrow, someone named Nyssa confronts someone named Oliver about someone named Sara. When Oliver learns someone named Malcolm Merlyn is alive, he suspects Merlyn killed Sara. Oliver and Nyssa join forces and go after the Dark Archer, at which point I totally glazed over because I read the comics and I don’t even know who these people are. I think people watch this show only to see abs. I wish I had abs.
