Lightning at Capitals Preview and GDT: One more before the break

Game #35 – Tampa Bay Lightning (16-13-5) at Washington Capitals (17-9-4)
Time:
Location:
Broadcast/Streaming: BSSUN, ESPN+, Hulu, MNMT

Opponent’s Site: Japers’ Rink

Preview

The Lightning head up to Washington, D.C. for one more game before the holiday break. After winning both games in their short homestand, they will take on a Capitals team that is riding their own three-game winning streak. After a 1-3-1 start to the season, the Caps have turned things around a bit and slowly worked their way up the standings in the Metro Division. Heading into tonight’s game they’re in fourth place in the division and are holding on to the first wild card spot.

With a regulation win the Lightning can leap frog them (although they do have 4 games in hand) and head into the three-day break in a playoff spot. In order to do so, they’re going to have to find a way to win a building where they haven’t had much success. They have a 16-35-7 record in 58 games as the Capital One Arena, so they will be more than happy to see the Caps move to a new arena in Virginia in a few years.

Washington is managing to find some wins despite a rather rough season from their long-time captain, Alex Ovechkin. The future hall-of-famer snapped a 14-game goalless streak with a game-winning goal against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday. The tally moved his career total up to 828 and leaves him 66 goals behind Wayne Gretzky on the all-time leaderboard. Ovechkin has just six goals on the season (including two empty-netters) and has some folks questioning his chances to catch The Great One (spoiler, he’s going to do it).

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t getting chances. The folks over at Russian Machine Never Breaks ran the numbers:

“Since scoring his last goal on November 18 and through his OTGWG in Columbus, Ovechkin’s slump included:

• 118 attempted shots, 9th most among all players during the stretch
• 42 blocked shots
• just 18 misses
• 57 shots saved by goalies
• 54 scoring chances
• 12 high-danger chances”

Not only have they had to deal with their captain’s struggles, the injury bug has hit them as well and they’ll likely be without T.J. Oshie and Connor McMichael as well as Nicklas Backstrom, Max Pacioretty, and Sonny Milano. The last three players listed are all on Injured Reserve. It’s led to quite a few call-ups, including a record-tying one in Ivan Miroshnichenko.

It’s been the young squad of players that have been carrying the team so far this season, with Aliaksei Protas leading the way with 15 points (3 goals, 12 assists) in 29 games. It’s been their ability to keep the puck out of the net (2.73 goals against per game) that has also allowed them to maintain their success. Charley Lindgren (2.40 GAA) and Darcy Kuemper (2.90 GAA) have been solid in net as well.

The Bolts will have their work cut out for them if they want to extend their winning ways and pick up a rare road win. Coach Cooper seems to have found the right combination with his forward lines (it helps that everyone is healthy) and the offense has responded with 11 goals in their last two games, 8 of them at even strength. While the big guns have been responsible for most of the offense, they are getting some help from the secondary sources as Michael Eyssimont, Alex Barre-Boulet, and Tyler Motte had goals on the homestand.

Mikhail Sergachev is likely still out for tonight’s game so it will be another chance for Haydn Fleury to show the coaching staff that he deserves a spot in the rotation. He’s played well in his last two outings and his ability to skate the puck out of danger has been a helpful asset for the defense.

Stats Match-up

Lines

Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines

Forwards
Nick Paul – Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli – Steven Stamkos
Conor Sheary – Tyler Motte – Alex Barré-Boulet

Tanner Jeannot – Luke Glendening – Michael Eyssimont

Defenders
Victor Hedman – Erik Cernak
Calvin de Haan- Darren Raddysh
Haydn Fleury – Nick Perbix

Goalies
Andrei Vasilevskiy

Jonas Johansson

Washington Capitals Projected Lines

Forwards
Alex Ovechkin – Dylan Strome – Tom Wilson

Aliaksei Protas – Hendrix LaPierre – Anthony Mantha

Matthew Phillips – Evgeny Kuznetsov – Ivan Miroshnichenko

Beck Malenstyn – Nic Dowd – Nicolas Aube-Kubel

Defenders

Martin Fehervary — John Carlson

Rasmus Sandin – Tevor Van Riemsdyk

Joel Edmundson – Nick Jensen

Goalies

Charlie Lindgren

Darcy Kuemper

Question of the Night

What’s the best hockey-related gift you’ve ever received during the holiday season?