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Caps at Sabres pregame: End of the road (trip)

By Peter Hassett

 1 Comment

February 23, 2019 10:01 am

The longest road trip of the season ends on Saturday as the Caps visit the Sabres in balmy Buffalo. It should be our first glimpse of Carl Hagelin as a Washington Capital.

It’s a day game, with the puck dropping a bit after 1 PM. Intrepid tech-savvy viewers can stream it all with the My Teams app. I’m Peter, and I’ll do the recap thing.

Record 28-24-8 34-20-7
Shot Attempt % 49.3% 47.7%
PDO 99.8 102.0
Power Play 17.8% (19th) 21.8% (11th)
Penalty Kill 82.5% (6th) 78.6% (22nd)

Projected Lines

Samantha Pell filled in for Izzy for WaPo in Buffalo, where she delivered these lines yesterday:

Ovechkin – Kuznetsov – Wilson
Vrana – Backstrom – Oshie
Burakovsky – Eller – Connolly
Hagelin – Dowd – Stephenson

Kempny – Carlson
Orlov – Niskanen
Orpik – Djoos

Holtby

(That’s a blind guess on the goalie. I have no idea.)

Road Trip Results?

The Caps kicked off this road trip by getting their butts kicked in Columbus. But then they beat San Jose, but then they lost to Anaheim, but then they beat LA aaaaaand Toronto. If the Caps lose today, they’ll still be .500 on a tough road trip. If they win, well, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?

The good run has the Caps biting at the Isles’ heels, but all the action is lower in the ladder.

Columbus, Montreal, Pittsburgh, and Carolina are all fighting for position. Hockeyviz thinks PIT, CAR, and MTL are basically in a three-way tie right now. It’s gonna be a photo finish.

Storylines

Peter’s Esports Corner

That’s right. It’s back. It’s never going away

Last night my Valiant lost 3-2 to NYXL, but the bigger story came later, when Shanghai Dragons defeated (Robert Kraft’s) Boston Uprising 3-1 for their very first franchise win. The Dragons lost all 40 games in the inaugural season — one of the worst losing streaks ever. And now it’s over.

Here’s Shanghai’s off tank player, the only woman in Overwatch League, Geguri reacted to the win.

Boston has had a rough start to the season. Friday’s game was dramatic as their main tank Fusions was disqualified prior to the match due to a contract issue. Also their owner sucks.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Sabres

Headline photo: Kevin Sousa

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