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Update: Holtby Starting* Caps in Motown, Powerplay-Powerless |
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Follow me @sportmajor
Braden Holtby will start today vs the Red Wings.
Jonas Siegenthaler will draw in in 3rd pair.
For the first time in three matchups with the Red Wings, the 24-12-4 Washington Capitals head into Michigan for the third game of a three-game road trip on their first losing streak of the season following losses at home vs Nashville and in St. Louis and Dallas. They’ll face a 16-20-7 Detroit Red Wings squad coming off their first win vs Nashville on Friday night after losing 6 straight as they won on a Dylan Larkin OT goal.
Alex Ovechkin will look to add to his league-leading 30 goals as he has had the Wings number so far this season including a hattrick in the 6-2 Caps victory on December 11th at Capital One. John Tavares of the Leafs has snuck back into Ovi territory with his 27th last night. Nicklas Backstrom had a 4-assist night that night as well. Ovechkin also had a goal and an assist in the 3-1 win on December 23rd also in Washington.
Detroit has given up a lot of goals this season and sits 4th-worse in the NHL with 143 goals scored against. Giving up that many do not help your goal differential as the Wings -26 is a far cry from the Caps +22.
Larkin, a native of Detroit, has become the leader in Motown. He recently had a 14-game point streak snapped last Wednesday vs Calgary and at only 22 years old, he’s playing well above his years in a leadership capacity. He has 18 points in his last 16 games and sits 39th in NHL scoring with 40 points.
Former Caps defenseman Mike Green, popular during his time in DC, has been injured and will not play today vs his old mates. He has been missed if he’s not in the lineup as well with the Wings only going a combined 3-12-5 when he has been out. This is nothing new to Caps fans as the fleet-footed blueliner had his injury issues also while skating with Washington.
The Caps power play continues to fizzle and since December 1st they only have 5 goals on 44 chances with only Montreal, St. Louis, and Columbus having worse efficiency rates in that timespan. This new account on Twitter speaks for itself…..
This is absolutely unacceptable for a team that has been near the top of the league PP stats for the better part of a decade. After sitting near the tops in the league for the first two months of the season, they have now fallen to 10th overall at 22.1%. They currently have only scored once in their last 29 opportunities. How is that even possible with this line-up?
I don’t know Ovi…...tis a tad concerning when you lose 3 in a row me thinks.
While the Caps shouldn’t necessarily be scared of a 21st ranked Wings PP, but they need to be better staying out of the box. It’s getting taxing on some skaters and it seems like the Caps just give away momentum with some of their ill-timed pims.
Seems as though our Burky has enamored himself with those outside DC as well…..
...this was quite funny I must say.
Note the early game start of 5 PM EST from the Joe...um ...er… Little Ceasers Arena.
Capital Gain:
Alex Ovechkin has 104 career game-winning goals.
Nicklas Backstrom is a career +130
Washington Capitals Blogger • 
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