The Washington Capitals are facing the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second time in four days. This game will be a lot more interesting than the previous mainly due to everyone watching the return of Capitals veterans Tom Wilson, and Nicklas Backstrom. Both players have been out for a long time due to injuries that had accumulated at the end of last season. This is a huge boost for a team that at one point was the most injured team in the NHL. Due to activating these guys off of the injured reserve list, forward Aliaksei Protas was sent to the AHL affiliate, The Hershey Bears, as well as Forward Joe Snively being placed on waivers in hopes of him clearing in order to be reassigned to the Hershey Bears. Along with these moves, it was reported that Anthony Mantha and Aube-Kubel and Matt Irwin are the healthy scratches for tonight’s game according to Tarik El-Bashir.
The questions coming from all the lineup changes, are mainly how will this effect team chemistry, because the group that has been on the ice has formed a strong connection and has turned into a gritty, duke them out team, that will grind during a game in order to come out victorious and even in defeat, saw strong gritty performances.
The Goaltending situation in Washington is very solid. The Caps have a solid starter in Darcy Kuemper and backup in Charlie Lindgren. Both Players have accumulated 11 wins so far this season. Kuemper has a few more losses at nine, while Lindgren has five losses on the season. Both players are sporting phenomanal goals against average at 2.56 for Kuemper and 2.60 for Lindgren. Both players respectively have a save percentage over 900 which is very strong.
This is an afternoon game so friendly reminder that it starts at 5:00 today on NBCSPORTSWASHINGTON
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