The Washington Capitals find themselves today in New York, New York, the city so nice you don’t even notice how all of midtown smells like piss. The hockey Rangers were active sellers at the deadline, so the roster they’ve got left over isn’t exactly fearsome. Let’s see how the Caps adjust their effort levels to play down to lesser competition!

It’s a nooner, people. Puck drop’s at MSG at around 12:30 AM. Stream the game from your devices on the My Teams app. I’m Peter and I’ll do the recap thang for your pleasure. 

Record	27-27-10	37-21-7
Shot Attempt %	49.2%	48.4%
PDO	99.9	102.1
Power Play	20.5% (14th)	22.3% (9th)
Penalty Kill	77.5% (26th)	78.3% (23rd)

Projected Lines

It’s an early game, so there’s no morning skate. I don’t expect many shakeups in the lines, but I’m very frequently wrong about this stuff, so instead of a guess here’s a baby Capybara from the Belfast Zoo.

Not expecting changes though.

Reirden says Holtby will start today and it’ll be the same players as last game.

— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) March 3, 2019

One Year Ago

On March 3, 2018, the Caps played the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Naval Academy. There was a blackout, Ian was on TV, and the Caps won. It was a great day.

Storylines

• The playoff race is funnnnnn.
• The Caps sound off on Bryce to Philly.
• Crosby is a head of Ovi in points now, but Ovi’s the only dude in history with ten 45-goal seasons.
• DSP got his first point as a Hershey Bear.
• Evander Holyfield participated in the Friday’s storm surge celebration.
• Tide yourself over this morning with our new podcast.
• The GIF at the top here is Lundqvist trying and failing to discuss the loss of Mats Zuccarello for the Rangers. It’s really sad, actually. I feel bad for GIF-ing it.

Quality of the Caps

WSH Quality of Roster pic.twitter.com/xWQYVnmUeL

— Manny (@mannyelk) March 2, 2019

Yesterday, Manny, the brains behind Corsica, did a fun exercise showing the history of team’s rosters. I find a lot of it very surprising. We all knew that 2016-17 team was amazing, but I was surprising how low 2008-09 were and how volatile the following years were. Cool stuff. Click the tweet to see a whole thread with other teams. Also, Tampa, wow.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Rangers