The Washington Capitals look to continue streaking while facing off with a familiar Western Conference foe in the Nashville Predators, lead by former Capitals draft pick Filip Forsberg.
The Washington Capitals came out of their week long break without their captain Alex Ovechkin, and would look to brush off the dust and take on their biggest opponent from the Atlantic division the Montreal Canadians.
The rest of the team answered with authority by avenging a sound defeat from earlier in the season by doubling up the Canadians and winning without Ovechkin by a score of 4-2.
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Tom Wilson, Travis Boyd, Jakub Vrana and Nicklas Backstrom were all goal scorers for the Washington Capitals, while Braden Holtby continued his dominance of the Canadians. Holtby is now 14-2-2 with a 0.943 SV% and 1.69 GAA against the Canadians. It was great to see the effort the team as a whole put toward securing their 4th win in a row, including incredible forechecking and effort put forth by Evgeny Kuznetsov.
Look no further than his assist on Vrana’s second period goal where he positioned the puck for the goal while sitting on the ice. This brought back memories of Ovechkin scoring from a similar position years ago. Hopefully this will be the effort and outcome against the Capitals next opponent.
The Washington Capitals attention will now turn to the Nashville Predators who has held the advantage over the Capitals for years. The Predators hold a 0.617 win percentage against the Capitals. The team hasn’t helped their cause in recent history against Predators as they gifted them a guy who has been the strongest against the Capitals out of all Eastern Conference teams. Filip Forsberg has his best track record against Eastern Conference when facing the Capitals to the tune of 7 goals and 6 assists in 10 games played. Thank you again George McPhee.
Both teams are heading in the opposite directions as the Washington Capitals have been on a roll, while the Predators have been on and off lately with a 2-3 record over their last 5 games.
This translates to their season overall as they sit in the basement of the Central division with 51 standings points. Their special teams have been a large contributor to their current position in the standings, as they sit 24th in PP with a 16.77% conversion rate and their PK sits 29th for 74.00% conversion rate. This will play in the hands of the Capitals as they still have one of the top units for the league in both categories, 13th and 2nd respectively.
The Washington Capitals will start Braden Holtby in goal for the second consecutive game. Holtby’s track record against the Predators as he holds a 3-4-1 record with a 0.866 SV% and 4.19 GAA. The big question most will have is whether or not Ovechkin can come through and continue to climb the ranks of all time goal scorers.
Below is the best way to find out:
Date: Wednesday. January 29th
Time: 7:30 pm EST
Where: Capital One Arena
TV Broadcast: NBC Sports Network
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Caps Radio 24/7
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