** Braden Holtby will not start and the Caps have called in an emergency backup and Pheonix Copley will start his second game in a row. Details about Holtby status unknown. Manitoba Bisons Women’s Goaltending coach Gavin McHale will dress for the Capitals as emergency backup.

The 8-6-3 Washington Capitals will look to win their first game on a back to back as they play their second of a 4 game road trip in Winnipeg to face a 10-5-1 Jets team that has won 7 of the last 10 after an inconsistent start to the season. Caps will again try and win the second game of the back to back set after losses to Pittsburgh and New Jersey earlier in the season on the second night.

Coming off an impressive 5-2 win last night over the Minnesota Wild where Tom Wilson returned and scored a goal and got engaged in a scrap with Marcus Foligno. Dmitry Orlov was great in the win recording his first 2 goals of the year and a nice assist on Wilson’s goal. The Caps 3rd line of Eller, Burakovsky and Connolly was buzzin all game as they looked a lot like the line from the playoffs last spring. The Capitals wanted to improve on their 5 on 5 scoring and PK going into Minnesota and the team responded as they scored all 5 goals at 5 on 5 and the PK was excellent finishing 5 for 6 stopped. Pheonix Copley was solid in the net for Washington finishing with 26 saves.

The Capitals will try and win consecutive games for only the second time this season as consistency has plague Todd Reirden’s team thus far. Winnipeg is allowing over 30 shots a game but have the fourth best GAA of 2.53 in the league. Goalies Connor Hellebuyck and backup Laurent Broissoit have a combined .934 SV% and 2.26 GAA so they Caps will have to get traffic at play in the dirty areas to get one past the well playing netminders.

Braden Holtby (5-5-2) will be back in the net for the Caps as he looks to continue his hot play of late. Holtby has a .925 SV% in his last three starts and has made some key saves to keep the Caps in games over that stretch.

Blake Wheeler sits 5th in NHL scoring and leads the Jets scoring attack with 23 points and Mark Scheifele paces the goal scoring with 9. Patrik Laine is off to a slow start by his standards with only 8 goals so far but the big winger can score in bunches and the Caps will have to watch for his heavy shot on the Jets PP much like Ovechkin’s on the Caps PP. The former Calder Trophy runner up to Toronto’s Auston Matthews is a force and has fired 64 shots on goal so far. Jets ice time leader Dustin Byfuglien is at 24:29 a game and has 2 G’s and 13 points on the year. The Caps will have to be aware when the 6’5” 260 pound defenceman is on the ice as much like Tom Wilson as he escaped supplementary discipline for his high hit on New Jersey’s Brian Boyle.

Kuznetsov continues to pace the Capitals with 21 points to put him 5 back of leader Connor McDavid of Edmonton. Ovechkin’s 12 goals lead the team and put him in a tie for 3rd sitting four back of Boston’s David Pastrnak’s 16.

Capital Gain:

Evgeny Kuznetsov recorded his 200th career assist in Tuesday’s win over Minnesota
Former Capital Mathieu Perreault is with the Jets (16GP 3-1-4)

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