Caps vs Oilers Pregame: And Then We Break

January 20, 2015 3:28 pm

The Caps lost two in a row in a rather frustrating weekend. I liked how the Caps played for the most part, but there’s some saggy-ness in the defense that the team will need to fix if they want to beat the–

Oh, nevermind. It’s just the Edmonton Oilers.

You’re all clear, Caps, now let’s blow this thing and go to the All-Star break. 7 PM on CSN.

Team	Record	Possession	PDO	Power Play	Penalty Kill
Washington Capitals	24-13-8	52.3%	100.2	24.1%	79.3%
Edmonton Oilers	11-26-9	48.7%	97.3	13.9%	79.8%

Projected Lineup

There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror. And then, next day, you didn’t know what to make of it, you couldn’t interpret the horror you had glimpsed the day before. Yes, you know what evil costs.

Oh, and no changes to the lines. Holtby in net. According to Prewitt:

Ovechkin – Backstrom – Burakovsky
Johansson – Kuznetsov – Brouwer
Laich– Fehr– Ward
Chimera – Beagle – Wilson

Orpik – Carlson
Alzner – Niskanen
Hillen – Green

Holtby

Best Thing on the Internet Today

Same. pic.twitter.com/qpjquTTAyY

— Danny (@recordsANDradio) January 20, 2015

Storylines

Barry Trotz thinks the Caps “still need a piece or two.” He’s absolutely right. Good stuff in there by Prewitt.
Ovi did that thing again. And you already heard about the beard contract, right?
Brian MacLellan spoke to the press today. Here’s my fave for now, from BMac via Adam Vingan:

“I think he’s played well. Obviously, he’s one of the leading candidates for the Calder Trophy. If you’re asking if I would like to do a do-over? Yeah, sure.”

The dichotomy of the whole Nail Yakupov thing, over at Copper and Blue.
I thought my Sunday snapshot was particularly potent this week, so please take a look back if you haven’t yet.
The Caps change stuff based on the game’s score and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s my hard sell for a piece that took awhile to write.
Should the Caps send Justin Peters down to Hershey for the rest of the year?
Lambert: “Remember this summer when Brooks Orpik signed that five-year deal with Washington that would inexplicably pay him $5.5 million per? And how everyone laughed?” Uh, we didn’t laugh; we dropped an F-bomb on Twitter and then everyone stopped talking to us.

Aaaaand…

I'm SO excited to be joining the cast of #GreaseLive as Sandy! #FOX January 2016 🙂 #tellmeaboutitstud

— Julianne Hough (@juliannehough) January 17, 2015