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Game Day DC-Weathering the Storm with the Canes in Town.

October 10, 2013, 12:31 PM ET [1 Comments]
Ben Case
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Caps (1-2-0) will face the Carolina Hurricanes(1-1-1) this evening at 7:00 at the Verizon Center in their first matchup of the year in the newly formed Metropolitan division. Despite this being the two teams’ first meeting for the season, both teams are very familiar with each other as they were Southeast division rivals previously. Adding to the tension is the fact that ex-Caps, Alexander Semin will be coming back to town after leaving the Caps in the summer of 2012 through free agency.

The Caps previously played on Saturday against Dallas on the road and saw their first low-scoring battle but ultimately falling by the tune of 2-1. Their previous two games before Dallas were highlighted by a lot of scoring and little goaltending (8 GF, 10 GA first two games). Now that the Caps have had a couple of days off, hopefully they will be a little more consistent in their defensive end. In addition, the Caps have struggled with even strength play and hopefully the forward lines begin to mesh a little more. Multiple forwards who had high season anticipations have not produced yet, for instance Mojo, Brooks Laich, Troy Brouwer (the list is very long). In fact, seven of the nine goals scored by the Capitals have come from Mikhail Grabovski and Ovie. Given the amount of time off, hopefully the Caps offense and defense come out looking a little more like a unit, rather than so individualistic.

Ovechkin is looking like his old form, as last week he was the NHL First Star of the Week. In his first three games, Ovie has registered four goals and two assists. What is also encouraging, is the fact that he is playing physical, laying down 10 hits. A majority of his points are coming on the powerplay, which is positive because this means that Coach Oates has gotten the special teams clicking early. However, the first line and Ovechkin have struggled early with even strength play, which will need to improve this evening. As a team, the Caps struggle even strength and have been outscored 10-3. The powerplay is registering an astounding 50%, scoring on six of twelve opportunities.

It is rumored that defenders Steven Olesky and Alexander Urbom will be paired together for the 3rd defensive line. The Caps lost blueliner Jack Hillen, against Calgary with a fractured tibial plateau and he isn’t expected back for 4-6 months. In previous games, Connor Carrick was paired with Hillen and the two of them struggled keeping players tied up in front of Holtby. Despite this, Carrick has showed glimpses of greatness including his tallying his first NHL goal on a breakaway against the Flames. On the other side of the spectrum, Urbom, hovering at 6’5 bring some greatly needed size to the Caps d-unit and was acquired last week off of waivers from the Devils. Tonight will mark his season debut on the blueline, marking the 8th D to dress in just the 4th game of the season for the Caps. Olesky made his season debut in Dallas and was paired with Carrick, however, both of them are right handed.

The Caps recalled Michael Latta after assigning him to Hershey when they acquired Urbom last week. It is rumored that he will be back on the 4th line with Erat and Wilson on the wings. Anticipated scratches this evening are Carrick, Volpatti and Beagle. Coach Oates has indicated that the lines will look the same, so I would be surprised to see any shifting with the parings (other than Urbom and Latta in the lineup). Holtby will be holding down the fort in net tonight, and stopped 19 of 21 against Dallas. In his first two games, Holtby made some spectacular saves, however was chased against Calgary letting in three goals on eleven shots in sixteen minutes of play. He comes into the evening boasting a 4.47 GAA and a .849 save % and will be looking to build off of his play from Saturday.

Looking at the Hurricanes, they were throttled by Pittsburgh on Tuesday, losing 5-2. Adding salt to the wound was the fact that ex-Hurricane, Jussi Jokinen tallied a hat-trick and is still being paid some of his salary by the Canes. The Hurricanes are coming into DC a little banged up as they are without veteran blueliners Joni Pitkanen (heel), who is out for the season and also Tim Gleason who suffered a concussion and has an unknown expected return time. Their D unit is relatively young and inexperienced and saw the off-season acquisition of Ron Hainsey (ex-Jet). Other newcomers are Nathan Gerbe (ex Sabre) and Radek Dvorak (ex-Coyote) who help round out the Canes second and third lines up front. Anton Khudobin (ex-Bruin), will be between the pipes this evening for the Canes and is also another off season acquisition.

Anticipated Lines this evening:

Caps:

Johansson-Backstrom-Ovechkin
Laich-Grabovski-Brouwer
Chimera-Fehr-Ward
Erat-Latta-Wilson
Alzner-Green

Erskine-Carlson
Urbom-Olesky
Holtby (Neuvirth)

Canes:

Jiri Tlusty-Eric Staal-Alexander Semin
Nathan Gerbe-Jordan Staal-Patrick Dwyer
Jeff Skinner-Riley Nash-Radek Dvorak
Drayson Bowman-Elias Lindholm-Brett Sutter

Andrej Sekera-Justin Faulk
Jay Harrison-Ryan Murphy
Ron Hainsey-Brett Bellemore

Khodobin (Ward)

Puck drop is this evening at 7 in DC. Check out the game on CSN or NHL Gamecenter, it should be a good one. Thanks for reading, comments are always appreciated. Feel free to follow me on Twitter. Go Caps!
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