Caps at Hurricanes Pregame: Days Gone By

Hello from the bleeding edge of another year nearly done. Before you bust out the sparkling white and snog someone special, let’s do watch some hockey together.

Tonight it’s the Carolina Hurricanes, who are a listless, nondescript hockey team not worthing analyzing in depth right now except to say that they are better at 5v5 than Washington, who, on the other hand, are fresh off a costly win over Buffalo that left Nick Backstrom and Jay Beagle injured. There are injury updates, but you’ll have to follow me down to read them.

Puck drop’s early: 6 PM!

Projected Lineup

Beagle is out, but Backstrom and Latta are in. I’m just gonna guess here.

Ovechkin – Backstrom – Oshie
Johansson – Kuznetsov – Williams
Chimera – Latta – Wilson
Laich – Galiev  – Burakovsky

Orlov – Schmidt
Alzner – Niskanen
Carrick – Chorney

Grubauer

Don’t take those lines to the bank. I’m really just making them up.

Best Thing on the Internet This Year

It’s confused Travolta. Obviously.

There&#039;s nothing more satisfying than a perfectly executed reaction GIF, and this year John Travolta took the cake in what might be his best work yet. The Confused Travolta GIF gained popularity earlier this year when ILikeToWonkaMyWilly posted this rendition, which saw over 5.7 million views. OP then proceeded to break down the barriers of GIF creation by posting a follow-up tutorial on how to very easily make your own. Thousands of creators flooded Imgur with ingenious Confused Travolta reactions ranging from the obvious (&quot;MRW no one tells me class is canceled&quot;) to the incredibly detailed (&quot;MRW I bought a new suit but can&#039;t find the person to validate my parking&quot;) to the meta (&quot;MRW Javert is no longer the most popular meme&quot;). The GIF has far surpassed the usual lifetime of a meme, and is still going strong. May he be confused forever. Original post: <a rel=”noreferrer nofollow” target=”_blank” href=”http://imgur.com/gallery/H3BR7EA”>http://imgur.com/gallery/H3BR7EA</a>

Storylines

• See Jay Beagle’s injury in creepy slow motion. Beagle will get surgery. He’s already on IR.
• Evgeny Kuznetsov had a big game last night, but he played it cool. The TKO line did work when Backstrom got hurt.
• John Carlson is expected to return after this weekend. In the meantime, Aaron Ness has been called up.
• Ian and I will be at a charity hockey tournament in Frederick this weekend. Come help us support a worthy cause. Free high-fives.

Auld Lang Syne

It means it’d be a crummy move to forget your old acquaintances, no matter what changes the new year thrusts upon you. I resolve not to forget you, sarcastic commenters who share a disproportionate amount of Kermit images.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Canes