The other night the Caps got that little p next to their name on the NHL.com standings page, indicating that they’ve locked the Presidents’ Trophy. The remainder of the regular season means very little now except for setting the tone for the playoffs, and on that point the Caps are in Philadelphia today. Their match against the Flyers tonight is likely a prelude to the first round of the postseason.
So that’ll be interesting. Tune in at 8 PM on NBC Sports. I’ve got recap duty.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 54-16-5 | 51.4% | 101.4 | 22.7% (2nd) | 84.8% (4th) |
| Philadelphia Flyers | 37-25-13 | 49.9% | 100.9 | 18.0% (18th) | 80.8% (19th) |
Projected Lineup
We got an Oshie situation. Read on. Here are the lines from Isabelle.
Ovechkin – Kuznetsov – Johansson
Burakovsky – Backstrom – Williams
Chimera – Beagle – Wilson
Winnik – Richards – Latta
Alzner – Niskanen
Schmidt – Carlson
Orpik – Orlov
Holtby
This is It
Per the excellent hockeyviz, the Caps are 64 percent likely to play the Flyers in the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade.
Storylines
- TJ Oshie is a game-time decision. We think we know what happened.
- If Oshie is out, we may see Michael Latta for the first time since late February.
- Tom Wilson wall-to-wall coverage: Birthday, Fight school, Thinking about repainting the walls inside Cal Clutterbuck’s head, and his first ever game-winner.
- Nick Backstrom needs to shoot more.
- Alex Ovechkin needs more assists.
- (The last two bullets are maybe related.)
- No one has found the easter egg in my Presidents’ Trophy rant, and I’m sad.
Party?
