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Rangers in Washington

October 17, 2018, 1:00 PM ET [2 Comments]
Marcus Boutilier
Washington Capitals Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Washington Capitals host long time nemesis Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers Wednesday night at 7PM and will look to end a two game losing streak. The Caps never lost three successive games in regulation during last year’s regular season and although facing a rebuilding young Rangers squad they’ll need to get on the Rangers early and not allow any confidence to gain. The Caps will meet a team coming off a 3-2 SO victory over the Avs at Madison Square Garden last night so it’s now their turn to host a team on the end of a back-to-back after playing in two sets of those games themselves already. Former Cap Kevin Shattenkirk (benched 2 games ago) had two assists and scored the shootout winner in the victory.

Coming off a 4-1 loss to Toronto last Saturday the Caps where not bad against the Leafs but ultimately weren’t good enough in a sub par 3rd period and will have to play a full 60 minutes tonight as the Rangers always play the Caps hard. Mats Zuccarello (5 pts) and Chris Kreider
(3 gls) will continue to lead the way and defenseman Mark Staal remains a presence on the backend. The Rangers have yet to win on the road and are 2-6 in their last eight games on the second night of a back-to-back. The Capitals need to be able to take advantage of a Rangers team giving up over three goals a game right now. After starting out hot with 18 goals in the first three games the Capitals have now only 2 in the last two games. Winners of 5 of the last 6 meetings with NY and with the home team 4-1 in the last five head to head matchups tonight is a game the Caps can’t afford to give up.

The Capitals are tearing it up on the power play right now posting a 36.8% success rate while on the man advantage. The Caps need to wear down the Rangers in their zone and force penalties as the NY penalty kill is sitting at 73% and are giving up high quality scoring chances. Always tough against the Caps Henrik Lundqvist is playing well so far posting a 1.99 GAA and a .939 SV% in 5 games.

The always energetic Nathan Walker will be back in the lineup as he gets a jersey in place of recently acquired Dimitrij Jaskin who hasn’t overly impressed in his first two starts for the Caps being out-chanced and not generating any offense on the fourth line. Walker, out since game two, is a relentless forechecking forward and the Caps will utilize that with Nic Dowd and Smith-Pelley also on the attack. Braden Holtby gets the net and will look to get the goals against back down as the Caps have now given up 12 goals in the last 3 games.
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