The Washington Capitals (6-3-0) will take their first trip outside the Eastern Time Zone this season. They will visit the Dallas Stars (5-3-1) at American Airlines Center on Tuesday night.
The puck drops at 8:30 p.m. ET.
The Capitals are coming off a real dud of a home contest from this past Saturday. The team gave up seven goals to the Ottawa Senators and lost 7-1. Even worse, Washington was celebrating captain Alex Ovechkin’s 1,500th career game.
This is the final road trip for the Caps in the month of October. But it won’t be an easy one as the franchise is 7-15-2 all-time in Texas, since the Stars moved from Minnesota in 1993-94.
Washington will be without two of its key players, Dylan Strome and Rasmus Sandin, due to injuries. Neither player made the trip to Dallas.
Strome went down with a lower-body injury after getting entangled with Jakob Chychrun in Saturday’s loss to Ottawa. Thankfully, his injury isn’t too serious as head coach Spencer Carbery listed him as “day-to-day.”
Sandin missed the Capitals’ weekend set of back-to-back games with an upper-body injury. During Monday’s practice session, he was wearing a blue non-contact jersey.
All eyes will continue to be on Washington captain Alex Ovechkin, who is currently at 899 career goals. One more tally and he will be the first NHL player to reach 900 career goals.
With Strome out of the lineup, Ovechkin will play alongside Connor McMichael and Ryan Leonard on the first line.
Netminder Logan Thompson will be playing in his 50th game as a Capital tonight. His record with Washington is an impressive 36-7-6, with the most wins by a goaltender through their first 50 games with the franchise.
Meanwhile, Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan is in his second tenure with the team after being re-hired back in July. Dallas started the season 3-0, but then dropped their last four contests.
However, the Stars responded with a sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes and Nashville Predators in a back-to-back this past weekend.
Expected Capitals Lines
Forwards
Alex Ovechkin – Connor McMichael – Ryan Leonard
Aliaksei Protas – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Tom Wilson
Anthony Beauvillier – Hendrix Lapierre – Ethen Frank
Brandon Duhaime – Nic Dowd – Justin Sourdif
Defensemen
Martin Fehervary – John Carlson
Jakob Chychrun – Matt Roy
Declan Chisholm – Trevor van Riemsdyk
Goalie
Logan Thompson
Expected Stars Lines
Forwards
Sam Steel – Tyler Seguin – Mikko Rantenen
Jason Robertson – Wyatt Johnson – Mavrik Bourque
Justin Hryckowan – Radek Faksa – Nathan Bastian
Adam Erne – Colin Blackwell – Kyle Capobianco
Defensemen
Esa Lindell – Miro Heiskanen
Thomas Harley – Ilya Lyubushkin
Lian Bischel – Alexander Petrovic
Goalie
Jake Oettinger
How to Watch
TV: ESPN
Radio: 106.7 The Fan/Capitals Radio Network
