Top 3 ways the Capitals can annihilate the Bruins

The Washington Capitals host the Boston Bruins tonight in the final home game of the regular season. One game at a time. It's game 81 of 82. The race to the final wild card spot goes through the Caps. They have to win out so tonight is a Game 7 in a way.

The Capitals have earned thre out of a possible four points against Boston this season and have held the Bruins to two goals in two games. The Caps shutout the Bruins 3-0 on Feb. 10 at TD Garden thanks to an 18 save effort from Charlie Lindgren plus goals from T.J. Oshie, Dylan Strome, and Alex Ovechkin.

In their most recent battle, the Bruins defeated the Caps 3-2 in the shootout. That came on March 30. The Bruins sit 47-18-15 with 109 points and are coming off a win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Here are the top 3 keys to a Caps victory tonight:

#3 Don't scoreboard watch

Focus on the task at hand. Yes the Penguins host Nashville. Yes the Red Wings host the Habs. Don't worry about them. Worry about the Bruins who house one of the league's best scorers in David Pastrnak, who has 47 goals this season along with 62 assists for 109 points.

Remember this is a Bruins team that won the Presidents Trophy last season. They could still win it this season depending on what happens with the Dallas Stars, New York Rangers, and Carolina Hurricanes.

#2 Youth movement

The young guys need to step up now more than ever. The Caps are without Rasmus Sandin and Nick Jensen for the remainder of the regular season and the best defenseman on the team in John Carlson will be getting a lot of minutes as it is.

The Caps will go with Charlie Lindgren in goal tonight via Bailey Johnson of The Washington Post on X/Twitter. She also noted that Spencer Carbery confirmed that Dylan McIlrath will draw in. With four right handers, Trevor van Riemsdyk will move ot the left side.

Johnson's guess is that the defensive pairs will be Fehervary-Carlson up top and then TvR-Iorio and then followed by Alexeyev and McIlrath to round it out.

Per the game notes, four of the Capitals seven available defensemen for Monday's game are age 26 or younger though Lucas Johansen did take the scratches skate after morning skate today at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. All four are Caps draft picks and have combined to play 111 games this season and 269 NHL games.

Fehervary skated a career high 27:06 in Washington's 4-2 win on Saturday over the Tampa Bay Lightning while Alex Alexeyev recorded a career high eight hits.