All eyes will be on the Senators crease tonight as Andrew Hammond makes his return to the lineup, and for the first time since Nov. 12th Craig Anderson will start a game on the bench. Anderson gets a well deserved break, and Hammond will step attempt to once again show he belongs and is a capable backup or can even push Anderson for playing time when healthy. Hammond has played just 4 games this season, posting a 2-0-2 record and has lost just 1 of his 27 career starts in regulation. His 2 game conditioning stint in the minors wasn't exactly awe-inspiring, but his AHL numbers never were.
In tonight's battle of the Nations Capitals, Ottawa will look to put together back to back wins after the great Montreal meltdown that was very much overblown by 1 (really) bad period.
The Capitals are on an absolute roll, and have used their 9-1-1 record in their past 11 games to pass the Rangers and Habs and move into first place in the Eastern Conference, while holding 3 games in hand on both.
Washington netminder Braden Holtby has been stellar, and has led the Captials to post the top GAA in the league at 2.17 ( currently tied with the team that the Senators put up 5 on two days ago, the L.A. Kings). He also leads the league with 19 wins (3 ahead of Jonathan Quick) and has the best personal GAA of all qualified goalies at 1.87.
Third-year forward Evgeny Kuznetsov took advantage of the season-starting injury to top centre Nicklas Backstrom and the opportunity he was given to play with Alex Ovechkin and is in the midst of a breakout season as the Caps' leading scorer. His pace has fallen off after Backstrom and Ovechkin were re-united and he has just a goal and an assist in his last 7 games.
Backstrom has been held pointless only twice in his last 13 games, and had an 8 game point streak snapped on Saturday before he rebounded with a 3 point effort on Monday night against Pittsburgh.
Ottawa will try to keep the offensive momentum that they started on Monday going, and will ice the same lineup. They will try to take some of the pressure off Hammond by giving him some early offensive support, something they haven't done much as of late for Anderson. In each of the last 6 games the Senators have found themselves trailing at the end of the first period, and have been outscored 8-0 in the first 20 minutes of games since beating Chicago on Dec 3rd.
Finding a way to get out of the gate strong will be key, because Washington has scored the 5th most first period goals in the league and has scored first in 9 of the 11 games in this hot streak, and went on to win all 9 of them. These are 2 of the 3 best teams when they score first, as Washington is tops with a 15-1-0 record when they break the ice, and the Senators are 10-1-0, good enough for 3rd place.
Mike Hoffman and Mika Zibanejad each had 3 point nights against the Kings, and after a tough road trip the stay at home was very short. This is a one-game journey and the Senators hope to get back to the success they had on the road earlier in the season. They have won just once in their past 5 games away from CTC after going 7-2-1 in their first 10.