The Caps will travel to Montreal Saturday January25th, to battle the Canadiens at Bell Centre arena. Puck-drop is scheduled for 7:00pm.
The Caps hope to break out of their losing streak against a Canadiens club who is struggling as well. The Candiens will play their first home contest after finishing a four game road trip that saw them go 1-3-0. They have dropped three contests in a row and have only scored one goal in each of their last two games. Their most recent loss, was a 1-4 trampling dealt to them by the Redwings on Friday night. They were clearly outworked in the matchup and will be coming out strong against the struggling Caps.
For the Caps, I'll go ahead and say this right away: Ovechkin skated this morning and chances are high that he returns to the lineup tonight. When Ovechkin was asked if he would start, he said "I hope I'm going to be in, and help my team finally get a win."
Last night against the Devils, the Caps lost their 7th straight game. The Caps have scored only one goal since Ovechkin was sidelined with a lower-body injury. They've have had issues in just about all categories. They're taking unacceptable penalties way too often and their penalty kill has been horrible. Green and Orlov are making bad decisions with the puck and that's leading to multiple odd-man breaks per-game for the opposition. They're (near the top of the league) powerplay has lost it's scoring consistency which is really bad when they're having problems scoring 5on5. The second and third defensive pairs are getting caught out of position, not blocking shots, are losing the board battles and are making poor passes out of the zone. The goalie situation hasn't been what the Caps need it to be either.
If the Caps want to break out of this situation and make a playoff push, it needs to start tonight against the Canadiens. The defense HAS to start blocking shots! Good shot-blocking can win games alone and with the defense giving up the amount of shots they are, it has to start becoming a habit. As for the forwards, they need to start stepping up their game with more creativity.
What to expect for the Caps' lineup:
-Holtby is expected to get the start in net tonight. For the season he has a 13-12-2 record, a 3.00 GAA and a .911 save%. In his last 5 starts the net-minder has given up an ugly 15 goals.
-The Caps recalled forward Casey Wellman from the AHL and reassigned Defensemen Nate Shmidt. Let's all hope Casey Wellman fills in for the underperforming Erat tonight. With Nate Shmidt sent back down, we can expect to see Erskine in the lineup.
The Canadiens have yet to name their starting goalie for tonights matchup. But with Carey Price's recent struggles, we project that Peter Budaj will get the start. For the season Budaj has a 5-4-1 record, a 2.06 GAA and a .923 save%.
Zach's Three Key's to the Game:
Shot-blocking - As I said before, when your defense is struggling as bad as ours is, they have to put their body in front of every puck that's sent towards our net. It can be game changer.
Discipline - If we don't take the penalties we don't have to kill them. The Caps have to stay out of the box if they want to start putting marks in the win column.
Secondary scoring - This should just say "scoring" because as much as the lines have been switched around it's hard to pick out who should be singled out off the 1st line. But the bottom line is, we need to see more creativity from players like Backstrom, Johansson, Brouwer and Brooks Laich. Ovechkin can't do it all. Time to step up and play to your previously shown abilities!
LETS GO CAPS!
Zach Hart
Shades of Red
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