Harry Lichtman
The Washington Capitals (31-26-7) are set to begin four games in six nights. Their first will be at home against the Calgary Flames (24-30-7) at Capital One Arena on Monday night.
The puck drops at 7:00 p.m. ET.
The Capitals come into Monday on a three-game losing skid. Now, the team has 18 games remaining and needs to start winning as soon as possible.
With 36 possible points remaining, the Capitals’ maximum finishing total would be 101. The team winning at least 97 games would be enough to make the playoffs.
The Capitals are coming off a 3-1 defeat in Boston on Saturday afternoon. Washington needed a win to close the gap between the two teams, but the Bruins won their 12th straight home game. Both teams will meet again in D.C. this coming Saturday.
The rest of Saturday’s results in the NHL also went against the Capitals’ favor. Every team they’re vying against for playoff positioning picked up one or two points. Things got worse on Sunday when both Pittsburgh and Boston picked up points.
During the three-game losing skid, the Capitals have scored a combined total of five goals. Washington has also scored three or fewer goals in five straight games now.
In terms of the trade deadline, the Capitals acquired Timothy Liljegren from San Jose and David Kampf from Vancouver. However, both players are expected to sit out on Monday night.
As for Calgary, the team was an active seller at last week’s deadline. The Flames will miss the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year, as their general manager Craig Conroy made tons of moves.
Calgary ended up sending Nazem Kadri to Colorado and McKenzie Weegar to Utah. In return, the Flames acquired future draft picks, along with Victor Olofsson, Maxmilian Curran, Olli Maata, and Jonathan Costagna.
Expected Capitals Lines
Forwards
Alex Ovechkin – Dylan Strome – Anthony Beauvillier
Aliaksei Protas – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Tom Wilson
Connor McMichael – Justin Sourdif – Ryan Leonard
Brandon Duhaime – Hendrix Lapierre – Ethen Frank
Defensemen
Rasmus Sandin – Jakob Chychrun
Matt Roy – Martin Fehervary
Declan Chisholm – Trevor van Riemsdyk
Goalies
Logan Thompson
Charlie Lindgren
Expected Flames Lines
Forwards
Yegor Sharangovich – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Blake Coleman – Morgan Frost – Joel Farabee
Connor Zary – Ryan Strome – Martin Pospisil
Ryan Lomberg – John Beecher – Adam Klapka
Defensemen
Kevin Bahl – Zach Whitecloud
Olli Maatta – Brayden Pachal
Yan Kuznetsov – Zayne Parekh
Goalies
Dustin Wolf
Devin Cooley
How to Watch
TV: Monumental Sports Network
Radio: 106.7 The Fan/Caps Radio Network
