The Washington Capitals (6-4-0) will be celebrating Halloween with a home contest at Capital One Arena. They will face the New York Islanders (4-5-1) for the second time in the month of October.
The puck drops at 7:00 p.m.
Friday’s game is the first of a set of back-to-back weekend contests for the Capitals. After tonight, Washington will fly out to western New York to face the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.
This past Tuesday, the Capitals traveled down to Texas to face the Dallas Stars. Washington played well for the most part, but terrible puck luck and the absence of Dylan Strome cost them dearly. The Stars won by the score of 1-0.
Towards the end of that contest, Ethen Frank, who had been called up from Hershey to replace Strome, went down with an upper-body injury. As a result, Frank was placed on injured reserve on Thursday.
As for Strome, he missed Tuesday’s road contest against Dallas due to a lower-body injury. However, he started practicing again on Thursday and could return to the lineup tonight. Head coach Spencer Carbery said that Srome is a game-time decision.
One of the bigger problems for the Caps this season has been special teams. Through 10 games, the team has been 6-for-32 on the power play (18.8 percent). Meanwhile, Washington’s penalty kill ranks sixth-worst in the NHL at 67.9 percent and has given up nine goals.
The Islanders will be playing the back half of a set of back-to-backs against Metro division foes. The team is coming off a rough 6-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh.
Isles rookie Matthew Schafer is off to an impressive start to the season. His three goals match the most goals by an 18-year-old defenseman in a calendar month in the last 40 years.
Expected Capitals Lines
Forwards
Alex Ovechkin – Dylan Strome – Ryan Leonard
Aliaksei Protas – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Tom Wilson
Connor McMichael – Hendrix Lapierre – Justin Sourdif
Brandon Duhaime – Nic Dowd – Anthony Beauvillier
Defensemen
Martin Fehervary – John Carlson
Jakob Chychrun – Matt Roy
Declan Chisholm – Trevor van Riemsdyk
Goalie
Logan Thompson
UPDATE: Dylan Strome is out for Friday’s game. Sonny Milano is in on the third-line right wing.
Expected Islanders Lines
Forwards
Jonathan Drouin – Bo Horvat – Emil Heineman
Anthony Duclair – Mathew Barzal – Kyle Palmieri
Anders Lee – Jean-Gabriel Pageau – Simon Holmstrom
Kyle MacLean – Casey Cizikis – Maxim Tsyplakov
Defensemen
Matthew Schaefer – Scott Mayfield
Adam Pelech – Ryan Pulock
Alexander Romanov – Tony DeAngelo
Goalie
Ilya Sorokin
How to Watch
TV: Monumental Sports Network
Radio: 106.7 The Fan/Capitals Radio Network
