The Capitals are in an odd situation right now. They’re a good team, but they haven’t been playing like it in the last 10 days. They’re a playoff team, but they’ve been losing to gutter teams. They’re reportedly buyers at the trade deadline, but most of the attractive players have already been snatched up. They’ve got a lot of talent on the roster, but they’re not necessarily using it well.

With just two games left before the trade deadline, I’m starting to wonder if we’ll see any big changes at all. Maybe the team we’ll see against the Hurricanes tonight will be the same one we see in May.

Game’s at 7 on CSN. It’ll be my first time hearing Joe B call a game since before he got sick.

Projected Lineup

Yeesh. From Alex Prewitt:

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

Orpik – Carlson
Alzner – Niskanen
Hillen– Green

Holtby

RIP Leonard Nimoy

Dead at age 83. He lived long and he prospered.

A Revision to Wednesday’s Policy Change

I never really wanted him anyway.

Storylines

• Derek Miller wrote a guest post for RMNB. It’s a master class on high-level stats for the Caps this season. Beautiful.
• Brooks Laich is cold as ice, which is maybe some people are turning on him.
• BLY has a wonderful study on Trotz’s third line in general. It doesn’t have to be inviolate.
• The Peerless tells the story of Jaromir Jagr’s long and winding road.
• It was blue.
• The Canes have traded Sekac Sekera and Tlusty. Will they ditch Semin? If they do, will they hold onto salary?
• Forgive me for the tone, but there’s no time like right before the trade deadline to make your team manifestly worse. Jason Chimera is in the top six and the first power-play unit. Mike Green is not on the power play– which seems like misdiagnosis of the problem (which is neutral-zone play by 90 and 19, not shots generated once in the OZ). A gamut from Alex Prewitt in Raleigh:

Rush lines in Carolina: 8-19-90, 25-92-20, 21-16-42, 65-83-43. Volpatti and Latta the slated scratches, from the looks of it.

— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) February 27, 2015

PP units right now in practice: 74-19-8-20-25 and 90-92-42-52-2. So…that's new.

— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) February 27, 2015

One more thing about PP1 Chimera: Trotz said he wants more net-front presence. Could be matchup related. Canes' PK leaves backdoor open.

— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) February 27, 2015

Green agreed that the PP needed changing, "but it's unfortunate that it's myself."

— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) February 27, 2015

Sigh.

More Leonard

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Canes