Top 3 key Capitals to watch against Oilers
The Washington Capitals take on the Edmonton Oilers tonight at 8:30 p.m. eastern on NBC Sports Washington. For more pregame info including lines and betting odds click here. Read on for the top 3 key players to watch.
The Capitals won the last matchup on Nov. 7 at Capital One Arena which also happened to be my birthday. Birthday wins are the best wins.
In that game, Evgeny Kuznetsov (two goals and two assists), Dylan Strome (two goals and one assist) and Alex Ovechkin (a goal and an assist) recorded multiple points and the Caps scored four power play goals in the win. Charlie Lindgren made 25 saves including 12 in the third period to earn his first win at home as a Capital.
Here are the top 3 players to watch tonight.
#3 Charlie Lindgren
With Darcy Kuemper as day to day with an upper body injury, all eyes will be on backup goaltender Charlie Lindgren to step it up.
In the last matchup with the Oilers he stopped 25 of 29 shots. He made 12 of those saves in the third period and the Capitals led for all 20 of those minutes. In 37 career games, Lindgren has a record of 17-15-4 with a 2.89 goals against average and a .909 save percentage along with two shutouts.
#2 Dylan Strome
This post will recognize two milestones. Here’s the first one. Dylan Strome will play in his 300th career regular season game tonight.
Strome signed with the Caps as a free agent this past summer and has appeared in all 26 of the Capitals games this season. Strome has also played in 48 games with the Arizona Coyotes and 225 games with the Chicago Blackhawks.
Strome has recorded 19 points with five goals and 14 assists in 26 games this season including two goals against the Oilers in their last matchup. He ranks second on the Caps in points and power play points (two goals and seven assists for nine points) and ranks tied for second in assists with 14.
He also ranks tied for first on Washington in multi assist games with three and second in multi point games with five.
Through 26 games, Strome is averaging 17:01 minutes of ice time, which ranks tied for third among Capitals forwards behind Alex Ovechkin (20:39 minutes of ice time) and Evgeny Kuznetsov (18:22 minutes of ice time).
Prior to the start of the season, Strome had averaged 16:02 minutes of ice time per game in his career. We would like to congratulate Strome on 300 career games and we love him here in D.C.
#1 Garnet Hathaway
Another milestone tonight is that Garnet Hathaway is going to play in his 400th career game. Hathaway has played in 224 of his 399 carer games with Washington and also played in 175 with the Calgary Flames
Hathaway’s 224 games played are the most on the Capitals since 2019-20 which was his first season with the team. During that span he has played in 96.1 percent of Washington’s games.
In 399 career games, Hathaway has recorded 104 points with 47 goals and 57 assists. Among active forwards that went undrafted, Hathaway ranks 12th in games played with 399. This season, Hathaway ranks first on the Capitals in hits with 99 and second in penalties drawn with 13.
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Congrats to Hathaway and Strome on these milestones. Now let’s get a win tonight.