When the 4-3-2 Capitals take on the 5-5 Flames tonight in Calgary they’ll be facing a team looking to halt a two game losing skid including a 9-1 thumping against Pittsburgh in their last game Thursday night in front of their home fans. It was the worse loss at home in over two decades from the Flames.

The Capitals will look to get back on the winning track as they have been roller coastering the W-L record so far this season. While many expected the Caps to start off slow given the previous off-season, and they are not bailing by any means, they are now about to play their 10th game of the season and i’d start expect some more consistency and accountability from the coaching staff.

Coming off a 4-1 loss to Edmonton on Thursday the Capitals need improvement in their five on five play. Andre Burakovsky has played a couple of strong games in succession as he looks to gain some consistency. Burky is moving his feet, playing more physical and buried his 1st of the season last game on a nice feed from Nic Dowd. Coach Reirden will change the lines up and after a couple games on the 4th line Burky will be moved back on a line with TJ Oshie and Nicklas Backstrom in Calgary. Jakub Vrana has been flying this season and will be moved up to the Kuznetsov line with Ovechkin. Vrana has the skill and speed to compliment the line and has been given the green light to skate with the puck.

New look to the Caps' lineup heading into tomorrow's #CapsFlames matchup #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/2yyYoRaBoE

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 26, 2018

Madison Bowey draws back in on the blueline for the first time since the second game of the season as Christian Djoos will be the healthy scratch. The 2013 2nd round pick has looked more engaged during those games and while he didn’t register a point he was much more physical including a scrap with Sean Kuraly of Boston.

Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk pace the Flames offence with 12 points respectively. Big off season acquisition James Neal has only 2 goals in 10 games so far. A new face to the lineup is 2016 2nd round pick Dillon Dube. The former Kelowna Rocket star has yet to score but his slick skill set won’t keep him off the scoresheet long. The Flames have drawn the most penalties in the league with 41 PP opportunities thus far. Even though the Flames PP has struggled at only 14.6% with 6 goals in those chances the Caps will need to be cognitive of this as their PK has not been great with only a 72.2% success rate in 36 opportunities against.

Washington’s PP continues to lead the NHL at 38.7% with only 10 teams drawing less penalties then the Capitals however. The Caps Corsi score of 48.83% at 5 on 5 suggests they aren’t playing with the puck as much and forcing team’s into taking penalties.

John Carlson leads the Caps with 14. Of all players dressed for 6 games or more Washington only has three skaters without a goal yet in Orlov, Kempny, and Jaskin. Pheonix Copley starts iin the pipes for Washington and Mike Smith will be right back in for Calgary after the big 9-1 loss last start vs Penguins.

Game time is 4PM EST from Scotiabank Saddledome.

Capital Gain:

Tom Wilson will appeal his suspension to a third party arbitrator on Wednesday after Gary Bettman upheld the League’s DPS decision of a 20 game suspension.

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