The Caps are in partly cloudy, 72-degree Tampa today for the first game of their mentors’ trip (pictured above), hosted by the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are in a weird situation. Last year’s regular-season dominators, the Lightning of 2019-20 are ambling along outside the playoff window at the moment. They will be highly motivated to win this one.
Puck drop’s at 7 PM. Ya boy Chris Cerullo is on the recap.
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 |
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|---|---|---|
| Record | 16-11-3 | 23-5-5 |
| Shot Attempt % | 52.1% | 51.2% |
| PDO | 100.8 | 100.7 |
| Power Play | 29.6% (2nd) | 24.0% (5th) |
| Penalty Kill | 79.8% (19th) | 85.3% (3rd) |
Projected Lines
Lines by way of WaPo’s Samantha Pell.
Ovechkin – Backstrom – Wilson
Vrana – Kuznetsov – Oshie
Hagelin – Eller – Panik
Leipsic – Dowd – Hathaway
Kempny – Carlson
Orlov – Jensen
Siegenthaler – Gudas
Samsonov
Taylor Hall
Everything seems like the Devils will trade Taylor Hall presently. Presently, I learned, can mean either now or soon, which makes it kinda worthless as a word. Anyway, Hall didn’t play versus Colorado last night and he won’t play versus Arizona today. Colorado and Arizona are, incidentally, two of the partners for a deal — with Florida and Long Island in there too.
Hall is a superstar, one season removed from winning the MVP. He’s going to change one team in a big way very soon. Get ready for the shakeup.
Storylines
- Ovi is a ProStar now.
- Backstrom and Ovechkin: Caps lifers?
- Ted Leonsis gave $25k to youth hockey players at Fort DuPont.
- When you think energy, you think Nicky Backstrom.
- Oshie wrecked house last game.
- Tom Wilson is ugly now.
- Congrats to Captain for being what we knew you were all along: a good boy.
Peter’s Favorite Album of 2019
It’s definitely Periphery IV: Hail Stan. Periphery’s sixth studio album is a soaring leap forward, pushing heavy music in every direction possible. The opening track, the 16-minute “Reptile”, starts with an orchestra and whispered vocals before it hops into a Dimebag-style boogie groove. There are electronic elements, singalong anthems, and odd-timed progressive jams. Every time I thought, “well, this is as big and wild as it can get”, the band somehow gets bigger and wilder. Special credit should belong to drummer Matt Halpern and producer Adam “Nolly” Getgood for giving all that exploration a dependable foundation and making it not just comprehensible to hear — but beautiful.
My favorite song on the album is all of them. If you like any heavy music at all, you’ll like this.
(P.S. They’re local and they’re Caps fans, but I would have loved this even if they were Pens fans.)
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Lightning
Headline photo: @Capitals
