The Washington Capitals blew a three goal lead the other night. They will look to put that behind them and avoid a potential trap game as the team opens up the month of December with the Chicago Blackhawks coming to town.
This game has the recipe of a trap game and the Caps need to be careful. The Blackhawks haven’t won in D.C. since Jan. 10, 2006. To put things into perspective, I was in middle school and Alex Ovechkin was in just his second season. That’s how long it’s been.
Doing the math, the Blackhawks have lost eight straight inside Verizon Center/Capital One Arena since then. This is the fist meeting in the District in over three years, since Nov. 21, 2018 which resulted in a 4-2 Capitals win. This is the teams first matchup with each other since Oct. 20, 2019 which was a 5-3 Caps win at United Center in Chicago.
Tonight begins a season long four game homestand for the Caps. It is also the first of 13 games in the month of December. They finished November with a 9-2-1 record. They started the month cold, got hot in the middle before letting a three goal lead slip away on the final day. Still, not too shabby. Let’s have a good December and end this roller coaster of a 2021 with a bang.
I’m not going to talk about the game Tuesday night any further. If you’d like to re-live that trauma you may do so over here. What I am going to do is give you an update from what the beat writers saw at morning skate.
From the looks of things, Justin Schultz was on the ice for morning skate in a normal jersey. T.J. Oshie, Conor Sheary, and Nicklas Backstrom were also out there albeit in non contact jerseys. As for the lines…
Vanecek will get the nod tonight vs. CHI. Schultz is set to return. The rest of the #Caps’ lineup should look like this:
— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) December 2, 2021
Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Protas
Sprong-Eller-Wilson
Hagelin-Dowd-Hathaway
Malenstyn-McMichael-Leason
Fehervary-Carlson
Orlov-Jensen
TvR-Schultz
So Schultz is back in next to Trevor van Riemsdyk. Always a good sign. The Caps are also going with Vitek Vanecek in net which is interesting. It doesn’t have anything to do with Ilya Samsonov’s play, which has been nothing short of outstanding. The loss the other night wasn’t his fault and even in that game I thought he was OK. No, Samsonov deserves a night off because he had his work cut out for him facing 27 shots in the third period while his teammates on the other end only put up TWO.
A packed slate of 15 games in November made for plenty of highlights.
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 1, 2021
Here are the best of the best, presented by @Wawa#ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/zUgasEVHO4
Vanecek gets his first start since Nov. 21 which resulted in a loss to his former team the Seattle Kraken. He will look to bounce back as he carries a 4-3-4, a 2.54 goals against average and a .906 save percentage. He needs a big game tonight. He hasn’t played bad but Samsonov has heated up making the goaltending debate even more interesting.
Date: Dec. 1, 2021
Time: 7 p.m.
Where: Capital One Arena
What Channel Is The Capitals Game On: NBC Sports Washington
Radio: 106.7 The Fan and Caps Radio 24/7
Betting Odds: The betting odds on WynnBET have the Capitals as -1.5 favorites at home against the Blackhawks. The moneyline has the Caps at -195 while Chicago is at +175. The over/under for tonight’s game is 6.0.
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