The Washington Capitals haven’t been too great lately, but neither have the Minnesota Wild. Last month they traded away their best player and fired their coach. They’re currently outside the playoff bubble, but the western conference is so crowded they’re necessarily out of the race yet.

The Washington Capitals can help settle that matter on Sunday night ay 8 PM. Chris has recap duty, so treat him nicely.

Record	32-25-7	39-19-6
Shot Attempt %	50.0%	51.7%
PDO	100.9	100.3
Power Play	21.2% (12th)	20.0% (20th)
Penalty Kill	76.6% (27th)	84.0% (3rd)

Projected Lines

Suggested lines come from Samantha Pell at the Washington Post. Gudas and Leipsic are out:

Ovechkin – Kuznetsov – Wilson
Vrana – Backstrom – Oshie
Hagelin – Eller – Kovalchuk
Panik – Dowd – Hathaway

Dillon – Carlson
Kempny – Orlov
Siegenthaler – Jensen

Holtby

Kempny and Todd

I would like to highlight this insightful story in WaPo from Samantha Pell. I’ve been fixated on Michal Kempny’s struggles this season, and it seems like head coach Todd Reirden is as well. Kempny and Reirden have had one-on-one time lately, for which Kempny is grateful:

[We] spent a lot of time together after practices and you know, we could talk about hockey and about other stuff, so it was nice… for me, it is completely different than Chicago and find this team as a family, it is more friendly here. Everybody talks to everybody so it was a lot different than it was in Chicago.

Four times Kempny is like “it’s not like Chicago, which was hell, did I mention that?” Anyway, great piece by Samantha. Please read.

Storylines

• The Metro division keeps getting tighter, and Ovechkin is falling behind in the goal-scoring race.
• Alex Ovechkin thanked his teammates for helping him get to 700.
• Ovi doesn’t think he can catch Wayne. Wayne thinks he can.
• Here’s a tremendous story about a special little boy.
• The unnamed Seattle NHL team has secured the talents of a brilliant analyst.
• Mike Green is hurt. This wouldn’t have happened if he came to DC. Obviously.

Here is a Kitten

One of our kittens is a bit of a drama queen pic.twitter.com/oklQb6eTae

— Kittens (@kittensfolder) February 27, 2020

You are welcome.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Wild

Headline photo: @CapsPup