Barry Trotz will face his former team for the first time tonight since parting ways after last year’s championship season when his 12-8-2 New York Islanders host the 13-7-3 Washington Capitals at 7PM EST in the Barclays Centre in a battle of Metro Division opponents. The Islanders are in third place in the division behind Columbus and Washington, and have been surprising some with their play up to this point.
There where many rumors about what happened in the split between Trotz and the Capitals though as far as I see it there was never any confusion. Trotz had a contract he wanted to renegotiate and the club held their stance.
Caught up with Barry Trotz about what it’ll be like to play the Caps tonight and what happened between them in the end https://t.co/bOkiJk0LvT
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) November 26, 2018
Washington enters the game without star forwards TJ Oshie and Evgeny Kuznetsov for the 6th straight contest. While Kuznetsov has skated he seems to be more likely to return sooner than TJ Oshie who didn’t even travel to New York.
Caps lines at morning skate.
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) November 26, 2018
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Holtby will start.
After Pheonix Copley started and won in Saturday’s game vs the Rangers Braden Holtby will again start for Washington and that may be bad news for the Islanders. After what some would call a shaky start to the season for Holtby, the Saskatchewan native has recorded a .957 SV% in his last six appearances and has seemingly regained the form that saw him lead the Caps through the playoffs last year not losing a game since he returned from a minor injury a week and half ago.
Josh Bailey leads Islander skaters with 21 points and Brock Nelson’s 9 goals pace the scoring attack for New York. Super sophomore Matthew Barzal hasn’t suffered a slump in his second year as the 2017-18 Calder Trophy winner leads the Islanders with 17 assists though his -10 rating leaves something to be desired in the two way game.
Tom Wilson scored again on Saturday and remains hot since coming off his suspension. Currently on a five game point streak he has 3 goals and 8 points in that span including goals in three straight. While Wilson is still playing physical he has tempered his game somewhat and maybe more significant then the points is the fact he’s taken only one minor penalty in his last 6 games. Alex Ovechkin has 5 goals and 7 points in his last 5 games on the season and he now sits third in NHL goal scoring behind Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine who scored 5 goals in his last game alone. Nicklas Backstrom sits one point back from tying Peter Bondra (825) for second place in all-time franchise scoring.
Capital Gain:
John Carlson’s next assist will tie him with Kevin Hatcher for 3rd all-time assists for Dman in DC Tom Wilson is two games away from 400 Former Capital Karl Alzner can’t seem to find traction since his departure from Washington….
This just in from @sad_ex_machina https://t.co/spyghbY1wD
— PuckerUpSports (@PuckerUpSports) November 26, 2018