Game Three begins tonight for the Washington Capitals and the Columbus Blue Jackets. Currently, the Capitals are down 0-2, but they have come back from a similar situation before. In fact, they did it during their last postseason against the Pittsburgh Penguins. That series didn’t end as we had hoped… but maybe this one will have a happier ending.

A few changes to the Capitals lineup could possibly give the team a bit more life because at this point anything might help! The most notable changes include Andre Burakovsky being out due to an upper-body injury and Braden Holtby taking back his rightful place as the starting goaltender.

Puck drop tonight is a tad after 7:30 PM and will be shown on NBCSN. Stay tuned for another Peter Hassett recap.

The final regular season stats:

Record	45-30-7	49-26-7
Shot Attempt %	51.7%	48.3%
PDO	100.3	101.7
Power Play	17.2%	22.5%
Penalty Kill	76.2%	80.3%

Projected Lines

As usual, we’ve been getting some live updates from Isabelle Khurshudyan at the Washington Post. We know Andre Burakovsky won’t be travelling with the rest of the team to Columbus due to an upper-body injury. TJ Oshie had a maintenance day instead of morning skate, but he will be in. Braden Holtby is in. God I hope this works:

Ovechkin – Kuznetsov – Wilson
Vrana – Backstrom – Boyd
Connolly – Eller – DSP
Chiasson – Beagle – Stephenson

Kempny – Carlson
Orlov – Niskanen
Orpik – Djoos

Holtby

Holtbeast: The Return

Please.

As I wrote after game 1, Holtby is 14-4-2 lifetime against the Blue Jackets.

— Ed Frankovic (@EdFrankovic) April 16, 2018

Storylines

• I know you don’t want to talk about Game Two, but maybe if you read the morning after numbers, it will make you stronger? In an emotional sense? Maybe?
•  Our boy, John Walton did play-by-play announcing for Game Three of the Devils-Lightning series. It went exactly as you’d expect. He crushed it.
• If you haven’t seen it already, Brett Connolly took us all on a roller coaster of emotion trying to give a little girl a puck.
• Didn’t you hear the news? Braden Holtby? He’s in.
• According to Wikipedia, Sergei Bobrovsky is now the owner of Capital One Arena. Bobrovsky has given up seven goals in the last two games and the Columbus Blue Jackets haven’t won a playoff series in their 18 years….but sure. Okay.
• Eric Fehr and Jason Chimera got chippy. Fehr also scored a goal. Life goes on.
• Tom Wilson admits he miiiight need to be a bit smarter for Game number three.

Ruthless

The New Jersey Devils are currently facing off against the Tampa Bay Lightning in round one. So, naturally, they just wanted to make sure you all knew when their rivals are playing their next game.

Photo: @nealmchale

The also decided to show a video of the Rangers golfing.

Devils showed a “New York Sports Report” on the Jumbotron during intermission that was just footage of the Rangers golfing. #Savage

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) April 17, 2018

This has nothing to do with the game currently being played. They just… wanted… to be messy!!!

Full Coverage of Game Three

Headline image: Nick Wass