The Washington Capitals have won seven of their last eight games, but that means nothing if they can’t beat the best. So here comes the best. The boys are in Tampa today to visit the best team in the NHL and maybe also the best team of the last two decades. The Bolts have the league’s leading point-scorer, a coach who should win the Jack Adams, and enough depth to punish teams who underestimate them. This is going to be a big test for the Caps.

The game begins at 7 PM, and fans who are taking their significant others out to Wine Kitchen for their birthday dinners can sneakily stream the game from their phones using the My Teams App. Chris Cerullo will have recap duty and also basically temporary dictatorial powers over all of RMNB, so look out.

Record	54-13-4	41-22-7
Shot Attempt %	53.4%	49.8%
PDO	101.7	101.9
Power Play	29.0% (1st)	21.7% (9th)
Penalty Kill	85.8% (1st)	79.5% (22nd)

Projected Lines

The great and mighty Izzy of WaPo tell us no changes. Dowd and Djoos sit.

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

Kempny – Carlson
Orlov – Niskanen
Orpik – Jensen

Holtby

About Nikita Kucherov

With 35 goals and 80 assists, Bolts forwards 25-year-old Nikita Kucherov is the league’s most valuable player. He’s a great sniper, an even better passer, he’s fast as hell, and he’s surrounded by excellent teammates. This hockeyviz graph tells the story: he’s an offense engine:

His 115 points are the highest in the NHL.

In the last decade.

And he’s got 11 more games left to play.

Storylines

• DSP is on fire. I hope we see him in red again.
• The Caps spent yesterday sunbathing.
• Peter (who is me, hi) is very encouraged by recent play, but wants to see how the boys do against Carolina and Tampa.
• Julia rules. What a story.
• Brooks Laich is a top-5 topic of discussion in the Crashers chat. Looks like Ovi’s still got BL21 on his mind too.

Peter’s Esports Corner

The LA Valiant fired their head coach this week after going 0 in 7 in stage 1 of season 2. The Valiant are bottom of the Overwatch League, but the Washington Justice might join them there after today’s match with Paris Eternal.

I’m optimistic that next stage will shake things up a lot, as balance patches to the game may make damage players more viable and maybe return us to 2-2-2 (two damage, two tanks, two support) team compositions.

In the meantime, OWL teams have been doing these gameday pictures that are so much.

Wanna talk about stress!? You wanna talk about STRESS!?!@Rascal and the team watching today’s games like… pic.twitter.com/JAK1V7wBTJ

— San Francisco Shock⚡ (@SFShock) March 16, 2019

The NHL could learn a lot from the upstarts.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Lightning

Headline image: Dave Reginek