Follow @james_tanner123 In game five, the Capitals shuffled their lines and came away with a victory. Nothing wrong with shuffling lines, though I do question doing it when a team is dominating like the Capitals have been. That said, the results weren't there and even though I always recommend sticking with the process if it's working everywhere but the final result, making a change is at least understandable.
What isn't understandable is playing six forwards more than Alex Ovechkin. If you're going to try him on a new line, at least make sure he gets first-line minutes.
For the Capitals to win game six, they've got to keep doing everything they've done for the first five games and hope that their goalie can outplay his inferior counterpart.
While it is certainly ridiculous and indefensible that Tom Wilson played more 5v5 minutes than Ovechkin the other night, I do like the idea of Burakovsky with Backstrom on the first line.
Burakovsky is an amazing player who is only 22 and could be due for a huge breakout next season. He's got speed and he drives possession. A higher slot in the lineup could come close to doubling his point totals - you can only do so much with Connolly and Eller.
Burakovsky leads all Capitals in controlling 66% of the shot-attempts while he's on the ice - given his ability to make his team have the puck, it only makes sense to put him with players who will score more.
All 4ï¸âƒ£🚨from GameðŸ–#CapsPens #RockTheRed pic.twitter.com/6MTv6yZUGN
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) May 7, 2017
Tonight's game is going to be great. Hopefully it will set up a double-header of game-sevens on Wednesday night when the Oilers will attempt to move on by winning their sixth game of a seven game series.
Should the Capitals pull off this minor miracle, they'll advance past the second round for the first time since 1998.