A big part of our mission here at RMNB is to explore different ways to enjoy hockey, which is maybe why some people take offense when we write about the players as human beings with human personalities. I can’t think of many ways to look at hockey that I would consider “invalid,” but right now I can think of one way that is essential.
Tonight Alex Ovechkin will try to record his sixth 50-goal season. Doing so would join him in history with some of the best scorers in hockey history, which is precisely where he belongs. One goal from Ovi would also tie him with Peter Bondra for most in franchise history.
And, most immediately, one goal from Ovi might win a game against the Carolina Hurricanes. This is one of the last so-called “easy” games left– if the Caps wanna jockey their way up the standings, a W tonight is pretty much mandatory.
Puck drops at 7 PM. Game is on CSN. Go Ovi, Go.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 41-25-10 | 52.0% | 100.1 | 24.4% | 81.8% |
| Carolina Hurricanes | 28-36-11 | 51.5% | 97.6 | 19.2% | 85.2% |
Projected Lineup
Nick Backstrom is a second-line center. Here are the lines from this morning, as reported by Alex Prewitt.
Ovechkin — Kuznetsov — Ward
Johansson — Backstrom — Brouwer
Chimera — Fehr — Laich
Glencross — Latta — Wilson
Orpik – Carlson
Alzner – Niskanen
Green – Gleason
Holtby
Today is March 31st
You have 93 meetings today.
Storylines
- With a 97.6 PDO, you might call Carolina one of the lucky unluckiest teams in the league. Only Arizona is lower. For the Hurricanes, that number is driven by both a low shooting percentage (6.6 percent, T-29) and a low save percentage (91.0 percent, T-27). They’re really not bad at special teams or at possessing the puck during, so they’re either dramatically unlucky with truly bad goaltending– or something is broken. As long as it stays broken until 10 PM, I’m cool with it.
- Everyone’s writing about Alex Ovechkin and rightfully so. Prewitt at WaPo and your boy Japers Rink both had strong items. Here’s a fun pullquote from Prewitt:
Since breaking into the NHL in 2005-06, Ovechkin’s 471 goals are 135 more than anyone else, a roughly 33.5 percent difference. Those are also the most since 2001-02, or three seasons before Ovechkin even dressed at this level.
- NHL.com’s Dan Rosen spoke to Mike Green about the stick thing. Our name got dropped.
- Sasha Cares.
- How to fix the tanking problem, which isn’t a big problem as far I can tell, and counterweighting perverse incentives will only make it more convoluted.
Programming note: I’ve gotta do another skip week on the snapshot. Many apologies.
Standings and Remaining Schedule
After tonight, it’s pretty intense until the end of the #rego season.
Unless things go awful, Ottawa isn’t catching up. The Caps have an outside shot of getting out of the Wild Card, but I’m not sure it’d be worth it. Let’s go Habs le clap le clap leclapclapclap.
