Photo: Amanda Bowen
In a game that can’t possibly be more exciting than the past two, the Caps visit the Hurricanes in Raleigh tonight. While the past two games have been as thrilling as could be, it’d be nice to see the Caps play a steadier game tonight and not have to rely on an improbable onslaught of goals to secure the two points.
Speaking of an improbable onslaught of goals, Cam Ward is expected to start in goal for the Hurricanes. He’s terrible.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 24-6-2 | 51.2% | 101.9 | 26.2% | 83.7% |
| Carolina Hurricanes | 13-15-5 | 52.4% | 96.8 | 18.3% | 76.3% |
Projected Lineup
No morning skate, so we’ll just throw all the names in the random line generator machine. Here’s what we got:
Ovechkin – Backstrom – Oshie
Johansson – Kuznetsov – Williams
Chimera – Beagle – Wilson
Laich – Latta – Burakovsky
Schmidt – Carlson
Alzner – Niskanen
Orlov – Chorney
Holtby
Carolina
As I started working on the pregame, this Ryan Adams song got in my head:
Storylines
- Dimitri Filipovic wrote a really great article about Erik Karlsson and how he’s changing the way defensemen are evaluated.
- TJ Oshie, who is not going to score 30 goals this season, was named the NHL’s second star of the week.
- Braden Holtby almost got pulled again last night.
- Want to relive last night? Here is every goal, in GIF form. There’s also Peter’s recap with a sad photo of The King.
- Tanner Glass is a garbage hockey player who shoves goalies. The Caps will not stand for that, man. This aggression will not stand.
- Still caught up in the excitement of last night? Go vote on the performance.
- ICYMI, there are no assess inside of heads right now.
- USA Today picked out gifts for each team. I think the Caps would like the gift suggested for them.
- Elliotte Friedman reiterated that the Caps are looking to add another forward. He also says he likes them to win the Eastern Conference.
NYC Caps Fans
Due to the generosity of a couple great folks, I got to watch last night’s game from a suite at MSG. These NYC Caps fans are legit, y’all. They have soccer style chants and songs for just about every situation that arises in a hockey game. Here are a few of those fine folks:
