Ottawa Senators @ Washington Capitals

The Eastern Conference-leading Washington Capitals are facing adversity maybe for the first time this year, with their longest losing streak of the season – a three-gamer (must be nice!) The Ottawa Senators, having broken a five-game losing streak with a hard-fought win over San Jose on Saturday night, can empathize with what that feels like, and will have to steel themselves tonight to try and re-gain ground in the wild card race.

Lineups:

Here’s how Travis Green’s crew lined up at morning practice. Nick Jensen trained on his own and has been nursing an injury since before the Four Nations break, but Green confirmed during his media availability that he’s expected to play in JBD’s spot. Linus Ullmark starts, while Tyler Kleven is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury.

Here’s how Washington lined up last time out in a loss versus Tampa Bay. We expect them to run with the same lineup, with Logan Thompson back in goal after frustrating the Senators earlier this year:

Game Notes:

• It’s an early one tonight, with puck drop slated for 6:30 Eastern.
• The Capitals have four 20+ goal scorers already (Ovechkin, Wilson, McMichael, Protas) and look on track to add at least two more (Strome, Chychrun). It’s incredibly rare to have 7+ 20-goal scorers on one team, so if they manage to land a big fish at the trade deadline, this lineup looks even scarier.
• Caps GM Chris Patrick talked about Washington’s trade deadline plans, and noted they’re moreso looking to bulk up their bottom-six. 11-goal man Nic Dowd centres their fourth-line, while 10-goal man Lars Eller centres their third-line, so methinks they’re looking for a winger.
• Over at The Hockey News, Sammi Silber had an interesting article on Washington’s healthy scratches and what they emotionally go through while playing for one of the league’s best teams.
• Kleven on LTIR gives the Senators an extra ~$100k in cap space as they replace him with Jacob Bernard-Docker. Both former NoDak rearguards missing time to lower-body injuries in crucial seasons for their development is sad news.
• On the flipside, we’re lucky that Jake Sanderson hasn’t missed much time this season and looks ready to go despite taking that nasty crosscheck from Tyler Toffoli at the end of Saturday night’s contest.

Player Stats:

Team Stats: