Game preview 13: Washington Capitals @ Pittsburgh Penguins 02/14/2021: lines, how to watch

Who: Washington Capitals (6-3-3, 15 points, 3rd place in the Eastern Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (6-5-11, 13 points, 5th place in the Eastern Division)

When: 3:00 pm east

How to watch: Nationally televised in America on NBC

Opponent’s path: Caps have been suspended since last Sunday, having three games canceled last week due to excessive COVID problems with Philadelphia and Buffalo. It was a good time for a break for Washington, who lost all three of their games in February to three different opponents (PHI, BOS, NYR). The Caps stick around (hopefully distancing themselves socially this time) and play against the Pens again on Tuesday night.

Pen path ahead: It’s game 3 of 10 to play Caps or Islanders for Pens this month. Today and Tuesday, as mentioned, Washington is in the ‘Burgh. The Pens will then host NYI on Thursday and Saturday this week, before Pittsburgh travels to Washington next week for games next Tuesday (02/23) and Thursday (02/25). The Pens then stay on the road and return to the Island for two more road games @NYI to close the month.

Season Series: Pens made a 4-3 decision on penalties on January 17, and then Sidney Crosby scored the OT winner two days later. This week is Games 3 and 4 of the PIT / WSH season series, with Games 5/6 coming up next week in DC. Then, it will be a long time before the schedule between the two ends with Games 7 and 8 on April 29 and May 1, also in DC.

Recent history: Pens are 8-2-0 against the Caps at home in the last 10 games, and 4-1-0 against Washington since the start of the 2019-20 season (with the Caps being 1-2-2 on their side of the results with some OT / SO losses).

Counterpart of the SBN Team: They are our friends at Japers Rink to review and comment on the news.

Player statistics at a glance

via hockeydb:

—Justin Schultz started well, but lost the last four games due to an injury. As we will see below, he trained yesterday and must be in the squad today.

—It seems that many of Pens’ best veteran players started slowly in the pandemic season, without much of a preseason. The same cannot be said for Caps vets, with Backstrom and Ovechkin having a very productive start, doubly impressive considering that Ovechkin’s season was interrupted by a seven-day quarantine for being in close contact with Samsonov.

—Lots of unique scorers in this game. Washington is in second place in the NHL, with 18 different players who have scored a goal so far this year (Columbus, 20, is first). Pens have 16 different scorers this season.

Possible Lines

ADVANCE

Alex Ovechkin – Nicklas Backstrom – Tom Wilson

Jakub Vrana – Evgeny Kuznetsov – TJ Oshie

Richard Panik – Lars Eller – Conor Sheary

Carl Hagelin – Nic Dowd – Garnet Hathaway

DEFENSE

Brendon Dillon / John Carlson

Zdeno Chara / Justin Schultz

Dmitry Orlov / Nick Jensen

Possible starting goalkeeper:?

Scratches: Daniel Sprong, Jonas Siegenthaler, Trevor van Riemsdyk

IR: Michal Kempny (LTIR), Henrik Lundqvist (LTIR)

—Samsonov has not played since January 17 against Pens due to his recovery from a reported positive COVID test. Coach Peter Laviolette said he expects “full compliance” from the players, good news for the Caps, considering that Kuznetsov has been out since January 19 for similar reasons.

And now for the Pens ..

—The number of goals that Crosby and Malkin score in daytime games is really impressive. Great players score many goals in any division you can imagine, but they definitely appeared in the matinees typically broadcast on national television.

Lines

Foward

Jake Guentzel – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust

Jason Zucker – Evgeni Malkin – Kasperi Kapanen

Zach Aston-Reese – Teddy Blueger – Brandon Tanev

Drew O’Connor– Mark Jankowski – Colton Sceviour

Defense

PO Joseph / Kris Letang

Mike Matheson / John Marino

Chad Ruhwedel / Cody Ceci

Possible starting goalkeeper: Casey DeSmith

Scratches: Sam Lafferty, Yannick Weber

GO: Juuso Riikola, Marcus Pettersson, Evan Rodrigues, Brian Dumoulin, Jared McCann

Taxi Squad: Alex D’Orio, Maxime Lagace, Anthony Angello, Kevin Czucman

—Marcus Pettersson may be a possibility to play today, but that will not be known until close to the time of the game. Until yesterday I was not allowed to play, but I am practicing with contact, so it won’t be long now.

—After playing well on Thursday, it must be DeSmith’s crease for another game. DeSmith is also 2-0 against the Caps so far this season, starting and winning both PIT / WSH games. He, however, gave up a total of seven goals in those games.

Protecting the paint can

There are no fans in the stands, but the Pens have been much better at home than on the road so far this season. So, maybe fortunately the next four games are all at PPG Paints Arena. From the team’s PR department:

The Penguins return home to the PPG Paints Arena, where they will play their next four games before setting out on a four-game trip. Pittsburgh (4-0-0) remains one of the four teams with no loss at home along with Tampa Bay Lightning (6-0-0), Boston Bruins (4-0-0) and Carolina Hurricanes (3 -0-0) ). Below is a look at the home team’s stats and their NHL rankings:

Stat Total Rank

Points% 1.00 T-1st

Goals / GM 3.50 13th

Power Play% 33.3 10th

Shots Against / GM 27.3 T-6th

Faceoff% 57.6 2

3 keys to the game:

1. The offense comes to life .. The Pens scoring a lot of goals has never really been a problem against the Capitals. Pittsburgh have averaged 4.8 goals in the last 10 games against Caps, and they have averaged 4.5 goals / game in two games this year (although that does count a tiebreaker). Whether it was Vitek Vanecek (whose performance dropped in February after beating the NHL rookie of the month in January) or Ilya Samsonov, Pittsburgh regularly lit the goal lamp.
2. Jump on them early. Caps have been off for a week, can Pens attack them earlier? It can be more difficult than that – Washington defeated opponents 15-10 in the first period of this season. The Pens are being defeated 12-19 in the first, and are losing in the first half in a surprisingly worrying 9 of 12 games so far. However, the leaders of the initial period may not need much: Caps won only 2 of 7 games when they led after the first period (2-2-3 record) and Pens fought for a 4-4-1 record when they lost after one.
3. Powerplay fights … again. Pens’ power play has still been great at schnide, now 1-22 in the last eight games, while allowing 2 SHG against this stretch. They won’t get much fun, Washington’s power play is at the top of the league, with a rate of 37.0% now. If Pens still have another 0-fer game in PP, they probably won’t win today.