Capitals vs Golden Knights: Returning To The Golden Land

It’s a city, it’s a building and it’s an opponent that Washington Capitals fans won’t soon forget.

Las Vegas, T-Mobile Arena and the Vegas Golden Knights. The Washington Capitals are returning to the city where they stuck their flag atop the hockey world in the summer of 2018. On Monday night they will try to once again claim a victory in a place where apparently things that happen there, don’t leave there. Except Stanley Cups evidently.

The Capitals won the previous game between these two teams 5-2 in D.C. on November 9th. They got goals from Kuznetsov, Wilson, Siegenthaler, and two from Backstrom. They also got 30 saves from Holtby on 32 Vegas shots.

The Caps will try to get out of their February funk they have going. So far this month they are 2-4-0. The victories coming against the lowly Los Angeles Kings and a comeback win vs the Avalanche. The defeats coming via Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York Islanders and Arizona.

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Vegas on the other hand is 4-2-1 so far in February. Since they fired their head coach Gerard Gallant on January 15th for bizarre reasons they are 6-3-2 under new coach Peter DeBoer.

Goaltending has been an issue for a lot of this season, particularly from Braden Holtby who will likely get the net in Vegas. He has been outstanding the last two games however, leading the comeback in Colorado and giving the team every chance to come back in Arizona. Holtby’s stats in the last three games has him at a 1.67 goals against average and a .944 save percentage. We’ll see if he can stay hot in the desert.

Goalies can frequently be the biggest story of a game. I don’t see that changing in this game. In all situations both of these teams have had some questionable goaltending. The Capitals rank 22nd in save percentage at 89.90% and the Golden Knights rank 23rd with a 89.87% save percentage.

Marc-Andre Fleury is carrying a 2.80 goals against average and a .905 save percentage so far this year. Those numbers are very un-Fleury like. Just like Holtby he will want to get his game back on track. He’s coming off a shutout vs the New York Islanders on Saturday night.

The power play has also struggled for a good portion of this season. Since early December the Capitals power play is clicking at a 16.5% rate. It was as low as 15.3% at one point but they scored two PPG’s vs Colorado in that comeback win.

The power play could play a big part in the game vs Vegas. The Golden Knights have the 22nd ranked penalty kill in the NHL this season, killing 78.4% of their penalties taken. This would be a good game to potentially get the power play going once again.

You can’t expect the Capitals to win the shooting battle this game. The Golden Knights have the top shots per game, averaging 34.6 shots a night. They also have the best Corsi% in the league at 54.64%. This is a team that gets plenty of shots and pucks towards the net.

The Capitals average 32.1 shots a game and have a Corsi% of 51.94% for comparison sake.

The Capitals are 24-10-2 when they out shoot their opponents and 10-4-2 when getting out shot. Vegas is 21-10-7 when out shooting their opponents and 9-8-1 when getting out shot. These are the top two teams in terms of wins when they out shoot their opponents. Vegas’ nine wins when getting out shot are the third least in the NHL.

Vegas leads the league in 5v5 scoring chances. They have 1,475 scoring chances so far this season, the next highest being Toronto Maple Leafs with 1,434 chances. The Capitals have the tenth most chances with 1,252. The Capitals defense that has some serious question will definitely have their work cut out for them in this one.

It will also be a reunion with a former teammate. Chandler Stephenson has found a pretty nice home in Las Vegas. Twenty-four games into the season the Capitals traded Stephenson to Vegas for a fifth round draft pick in 2021. He had three goals and four points in those twenty-four games with Washington.

Since moving west he has eight goals and 18 points in thirty games. He will possibly be lined up on the Knights third line on the left-wing, next to former Capital Cody Eakin with Cody Glass to the right of him.

The Caps will have plenty of Vegas players to watch out for who are on a bit of a heater. Going into this game the Knights have four players who have over a point per game in their last five games. Mark Stone (9), Max Pacioretty (7), former Capital Nate Schmidt (6) and Shea Theodore (6). Only John Carlson has over a point per game in the last five games, he has 7 points in that time span. T.J. Oshie and Nicklas Backstrom are both right at 5 points in their last five games.

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Finally the Alex Ovechkin watch continues. He still is on 698 career goals. He’s on a season long four game goalless streak. Maybe being in the building he won a Stanley Cup in will give him even more motivation to hit 700?

Date: Monday February 17, 2020
Time: 6 p.m. eastern
Where: T-Mobile Arena
TV Broadcast: NBC Sports Washington and NBC Sports Network
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Caps Radio 24/7
Live Streaming: ESPN+ has a free 7-day trial that includes live streaming for this game on all your smart devices! Besides NHL games, ESPN+ features a selection of live games from MLB, MLS, Serie A, FA Cup, and EFL. Get in on the action with Live UFC Fight Nights, 30+ Top Rank Boxing cards, Grand Slam tennis from Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open.

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