Washington Capitals at Buffalo Sabres
Washington welcomed back Alex Ovechkin on Saturday night and they promptly routed the Canadiens 5-0 in Montréal (and, for most of that game, Ovechkin was playing alongside Nicklas Backstrom). Amazingly, this power play has one power play goal in the team’s last nine games, going 1-for-32 in that stretch. There are a lot of underlying problems with this team and if they aren’t scoring power play goals, they aren’t winning – it’s not a coincidence they have one power play goals in nine games and are 2-5-2 in those games.
Buffalo was shut out last night by the Pittsburgh Penguins and that broke their streak of six straight games with at least three goals scored. Tonight will mark Buffalo’s sixth back-to-back game this year and they are winless so far (0-3-2). This isn’t a team that is built to withstand a barrage of goals and they’ve allowed 24 goals against in their last seven games. Sure, they went on their hot goal streak but the depth isn’t there for it to be sustainable.
This will be the third game this year between the two teams and the first two went to a shootout tied 1-1. One reason for the low scores is that Buffalo was able to stay out of the penalty box, giving up just four power play chances to the Capitals in those two games and killing them all off.
This should be a win for Washington but there might not be a lot of goals. I would be wary about stacking Capitals players tonight (or any night going forward) until we see the power play turn around. I don’t like to play the “they’re due” game either, I’d wait to see it before trying to cherry-pick which game is good for it.
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Top RW Value |
Top LW Value |
Top C Value |
Top D Value |
Bargain Bin |
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(WSH) |
(WSH) |
Nicklas Backstrom |
John Carlson |
Tom Wilson |
