Washington Capitals @ Los Angeles Kings (Staples Center)
Time: 7:00 PM PST
TV: Fox Sports West, SportsNet One, CSN-DC
Enemy Reading: Japers’ Rink
Lineups:
Los Angeles Kings
Gaborik–Kopitar–Lewis
King–Carter–Toffoli
Brown–Stoll–Williams
Clifford–Shore–Nolan
Regehr–Doughty
Muzzin–Greene
McNabb–McBain
Quick
(Jones)
Scratched: Andreoff, Forbort; Injured: Pearson, Martinez; Suspended: Voynov
Washington Capitals
Ovechkin–Backstrom–Johansson
Laich–Fehr–Ward
Chimera–Kuznetsov–Brouwer
Volpatti–Beagle–Wilson
Orpik–Carlson
Alzner–Niskanen
Oleksy–Green
Holtby
(Peters)
Injured: Orlov, Erskine; Scratched: Burakovsky, Latta, Hillen
Notes:
- The Kings’ last three-game winning streak? November 15-20. They’ve only taken a winning streak beyond three games one time this season, when they went 6-0 during their long October homestand.
- So home is better, right? If so, that makes the upcoming month critical. There are seven games remaining in February, and only one (at Colorado) will truly feel like a road game; four games in LA, one in Anaheim, and one in Santa Clara.
- Of course, February kicked off with a 4-0 loss to these same Caps. The next game (against Florida) was perhaps the most devastating loss of the season, but this game showed a team that was as helpless as they’d been all year. Almost no scoring chances, almost no poise on the back end, and a power play goal allowed to boot. The rebound opportunity has come around very quickly.
- The bad news for Washington? Their worst offensive game of the season took place on Sunday, when the Caps mustered just fourteen shots against a not-very-good Philadelphia team. The good news? That was six days ago, and since then, they’ve only played once, an up-and-down win over San Jose in OT.
- Steve Oleksy, who played in 51 games in the prior two seasons, makes his season debut for the Caps tonight. He’s had a journey, to say the least.
- Tyler Toffoli played 17:32 on Thursday, and astonishingly, that was a season-high. (According to ESPN he has a point for every 19:11 of ice time this season; can we just set that as the baseline?)
- PREDICTION: Tyler Toffoli plays more than 17:32 tonight.