Good morning, sleepyheads. The bye week is finally over and the Capitals are in Detroit to play the Red Wings. Yes, the Capitals did JUST recently play them and win 6-3, but there will be a couple shake ups this time around.
As the bye week came to a close, the Capitals recalled Zach Sanford and Jakub Vrana from Hershey for some additional reinforcement and to take the place of broken-handed Andre Burakovsky.
On the Red Wings side, the team has only won two of their last 12 games but will hope to capitalize on the fact that the Capitals have been gone for a week and might still have vacation on their brains.
Puck drop is at 2 PM on CSN. Thrilled to be back.
| Team | Record | SA% | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washington Capitals | 39-11-6 | 53.0% | 104.0 | 22.1% | 84.5% |
| Detroit Red Wings | 22-25-10 | 47.4% | 98.6 | 11.8% | 80.2% |
Projected Lines
According to the Friday practice lines, you should expect to see the following:
Ovechkin – Backstrom – Oshie
Johansson – Kuznetsov – Williams
Connolly – Eller – Sanford
Winnik – Beagle – Wilson
Alzner – Carlson
Orlov – Niskanen
Orpik – Schmidt
Grubauer
Kuzy in the Neutral Zone
The originial tweet:
Sliding into the weekend like… pic.twitter.com/KvBNVYWrOT
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) February 17, 2017
The Justin Williams take:
Hahaha looks like @Kuzya92 cruising through the neutral zone https://t.co/BYTRaqJqtG
— Justin Williams (@JustinWilliams) February 17, 2017
Storylines
- Capitals faceoff set plays and why they work.
- This referee wanted there to be no confusion about his fighting call.
- Peter Hassett brings you the details on the Karl Alzner tax.
- Henrik Zetterberg gave Nick Backstrom some wise advice back in 2006.
- During the break, Andre Burakovsky got into a car that was not his uber. They took him to his destination anyway. Peak Andre.
- Baby Kuznetsov is already driving….sort of.
- Braden Holtby will wear a You Can Play mask on February 24.
- Nick Backstrom did a very kind thing for a wonderful family.
- Bryce Harper is now a Vegas Golden Knights fan. Bryce Harper is also now the worst.
- We got a new defenseman from the LA Kings. His name is Tom Gilbert.
- Visualizing possession for the best. Caps. team. EVER!
- Get your tissues out because we need to talk about TJ Oshie’s next contract. Spoiler alert: not looking great for us.
- The Montreal Canadiens fired their coach and hired Claude Julien. Yes you read that correctly.
- Basically the entire team spent the bye week together in the Bahamas. The pictures are amazing.
- Capitals teammates that were not in the Bahamas were probably in Turks and Caicos. Gotta love a team that doesn’t want to spend a week apart from each other.
- Let’s check with Coach Trotz to see how the players are lookin’ post-bye week:
So, how’d the players look after the bye week?
Barry Trotz: “Uh, tan?”
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) February 17, 2017
Jaromir Jagr
Let’s talk about this man for a second. He just turned 45, scored his 760th goal, and still scores like this.
Jagr goal, #760…slick moves: pic.twitter.com/4QWdlo831i
— Cats On The Prowl (@Cats0ntheprowl) February 18, 2017
Now, I don’t believe much in witchcraft. I never read Harry Potter and I like the occasional card trick. But when the story comes out that Jagr has been sucking the souls of young players to keep his youth I won’t be surprised.
Doc Emrick calls the goal
These girls had a rat in their home and set up a hockey-like play to get rid of it. Someone put Doc Emrick’s call over it and now it’s my favorite video on the internet.
doc emrick calls the rat getting thrown out of a house pic.twitter.com/uFgkBmCFYt
— Ron Konkoma (@andymoney69) February 18, 2017
Full Coverage of Caps at Red Wings
Headline photo: Patrick McDermott
