The regular season ends tonight as the Washington Capitals host the New York Islanders for game 82. There’s nothing at stake for the Caps in this one, but other games will determine who their first round opponent will be. I imagine we’ll be watching the Atlas Corporation out-of-town scoreboard a lot tonight.

Puck drop is at 7 PM, and you can stream the game using the My Teams app. Chris has recap responsibilities, and he promises not to abuse the privilege again by sharing more unsolicited opinions about Mountain Dew Baja Blast.

Record	48-25-8	47-27-7
Shot Attempt %	49.8%	48.5%
PDO	102.2	102.0
Power Play	20.9% (10th)	14.6% (29th)
Penalty Kill	78.8% (24th)	79.7% (20th)

Projected Lines

Per Ms. Khurshudyan, it’s gonna be a weird one:

Ovechkin – Kuznetsov – Wilson
Hagelin – Eller – Connolly
Vrana – Boyd – Jaskin
Burakovsky – Dowd – Stephenson

Orlov – Niskanen
Siegenthaler – Jensen
Orpik – Djoos

Copley

(High) Danger, Barry Trotz!

There’s this notion that Barry Trotz is a defensively minded coach. There are a bunch of examples to back that up, but I think it’s a bit more complicated than the top-level description. Here’s a graph of how many super-dangerous up-close chances opponents get every hour against the Islanders and Capitals.

Starting in 2017-18, Trotz’s last season, the Capitals’ defense got much worse, giving opponents 13 percent higher chances than the prior season. They turned it around late (you know why) but it wasn’t good overall.

Then Trotz took over on the island, and for a while he looked like a godsend, dropping opponent’s high-danger rates by more than 9 percent. But the trendline for the Isles has been pretty bad since the trade deadline, whereas Washington has made big strides in limiting opponent shot quality.

What’s changed? I have no idea. This is just a pregame article. Please expect less of me.

Storylines

• Sitting: Carlson, Backstrom, Oshie, Holtby. Ovi’s in.
• Also in is Dmitrij Jaskin, who has not played since the late eighties.

Dmitrij Jaskin gets into his first game since February 17 as Caps rest high-minute guys heading into postseason #CapsIsles pic.twitter.com/c3CxvZbzM6

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) April 6, 2019

• Nathan Walker has been called up, but he is probably not going to play.
• Gaming possible first-round opponents based on tonight’s results. It’s down to the Canes, Blooj, and Pens.
• RMNB vs Dowder Power
• Also:

This looks familiar… 🤔 (📷 @of_elk /@russianmachine) pic.twitter.com/XP9zLnwUSw

— Donya✨ (@virtual_don) April 6, 2019

Pet Sematary: A Review

This movie exists only because the 2017 It movie made a billion bucks and now everyone’s green-lighting King adaptations. Beyond that, there’s no justification for a perfectly fine but thoroughly unremarkable retread of a story that was well told in its first movie adaptation 30 years ago. There’s nothing outdated about the 1989 version, and the new one’s twist is so superficial I’m still baffled why it was made at all.

That said, Jason Clarke and John Lithgow are always fun to watch, and holy crap there’s a jump scare in this one that will mess me up for months.

See it if you live next to a movie theater and want to think about something else for a couple hours.

Full RMNB Coverage of Capitals vs Islanders

Headline photo: Mike Stobe