The Washington Capitals do not have an easy task at hand tonight in Dallas. They take on a Stars team that they’ve only beaten seven times in 32 tries since said Stars moved to Dallas from Minnesota for the 1993-94 NHL season. The only franchises that the Capitals have a worse all-time winning percentage against are the Los Angeles Kings, Buffalo Sabres, and San Jose Sharks.
However, the Caps get TJ Oshie back for the first time since his head injury suffered against the Sharks in the first week of December. That reunites a very dangerous second line that was putting up unreal numbers prior to his departure.
We have an 8:30 PM start time and you can watch the game on NBCSWA+. The “+” matters. Peter has your recap.
 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Record | 18-14-2 | 22-12-1 |
| Shot Attempt % | 53.2% | 47.9% |
| PDO | 99.7 | 102.1 |
| Power Play | 18.8% | 20.8% |
| Penalty Kill | 80.5% | 79.2% |
Projected Lines
As said previously, Oshbabe is back. With that comes the scratching of Devante Smith-Pelly and a new fourth line. Holtby in net.
Ovechkin – Backstrom – Wilson
Vrana – Kuznetsov – Oshie
Connolly – Eller – Burakovsky
Stephenson – Beagle – Chiasson
Orpik – Carlson
Orlov – Niskanen
Djoos – Bowey
Holtby
This is wrestling
Believe it or not, this is a WWE storyline right now.
Storylines
- A fan teared up after receiving a stick from noted thrill seeker, Phil Kessel.
- The Edmonton Oilers put our mate Nathan Walker on waivers. Blimey.
- Patrick Maroon did the right thing for all of us when he tugged on Brent Burns‘ beard to make sure it was truly the real thing.
- Jakub Vrana has been one of the best rookies in the league this year offensively.
- Noted kale enthusiast, Brooks Orpik used to binge on Wendy’s Frostys and chicken wings when he was a younger player.
- Caps head coach Barry Trotz apologized to Kevin Shattenkirk for recent comments that were critical of the former Capitals defenseman.
- Alex Ovechkin documented a couple Caps team parties from over the weekend on his Instagram.
- A goalie rental app in Canada is making sure pickup games across the country no longer have to play crossbar only goals or only count pucks that go in along the ice.
- My favorite player in the league, Erik Karlsson and his wife Melinda used an exploding puck to find out the gender of their first child. Karlsson was excited with the result to say the least.
- Everyone make sure to read Pat’s snapshot from this weekend to get an update on how your Caps are looking numbers-wise to this point of the season.
Favorites of 2017
More 2017 favorite things. I have chosen for this pregame to go with my favorite YouTube creator of the year. He goes by the name William Osman. If you like wacky, fun, science, engineering, DIY projects, this is the channel for you. Unfortunately, his house with all of his tools and belongings burned down in the recent California fires. A majorly successful GoFundMe was started for him to help get him back on track. This is his most successful video of 2017 view-wise:
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Stars
Headline photo: Jerome Miron
