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Morning Skate: Detroit Red Wings vs Washington Capitals

7:00 PM ET, Verizon Center

Washington, D.C.

TV: Fox Sports Detroit

Radio: 97.1 The Ticket

Capitals Blog: Japers’ Rink

WASHINGTON DC — It was a nice break for the team in Alberta. Playing teams who just aren’t very good, and taking home a handful of points. Reality is, things aren’t going to stay that way. Tonight, Detroit takes on a red-hot Washington Capitals team who has been trending upwards as of late on the back of all star forward Alex Ovechkin, and goalie Braden Holtby.

There is one glaring flaw in Washington’s game, and that is their penalty kill. It isn’t good at all. If Detroit wants to make this happen tonight, the power play is going to have to light it up. Thankfully for us, Teemu Pulkkinen and his wicked shot is here. I’m hoping that he sees significant time on the PP.

Unfortunately for the Wings, Tomas Jurco is having disc issues in his back, and Johan Franzen is out with an upper-body ailment. Really hope Jurco is okay, but I wouldn’t be opposed to shutting him down until after the all star break. Let’s hope that Teemu’s excellence at the AHL level translates to the NHL. The Wings need goal scorers right now, and he is the perfect remedy for this.

The Expected Lineups (maybe)

Forwards

Gustav Nyquist Henrik Zetterberg Justin Abdelkader
Tomas Tatar Pavel Datsyuk Darren Helm
Drew Miller Riley Sheahan Teemu Pulkkinen
Stephen Weiss Luke Glendening Joakim Andersson

Defensemen

Niklas Kronwall Jonathan Ericsson
Danny DeKeyser Kyle Quincey
Xavier Ouellet Brendan Smith

Goaltenders

Jimmy Howard (starting)
Petr Mrazek


Scratches: Brian Lashoff, & Daniel Cleary

Injuries: Jakub Kindl (bad at hockey), Tomas Jurco (back), Johan Franzen (upper-body) & Jonas Gustavsson (shoulder)

Forwards

Alex Ovechkin Nicklas Backstrom Andre Burakovsky
Marcus Johansson Evgeny Kuznetsov Troy Brouwer
Brooks Laich Eric Fehr Joel Ward
Jason Chimera Jay Beagle Tom Wilson


Defensemen

Brooks Orpik John Carlson
Karl Alzner Matt Niskanen
Nate Schmidt Mike Green


Goaltenders

Braden Holtby (starting)
Pheonix Copley

CAPITALS THE MATCH-UP RED WINGS
21-11-8 (50 pts; 4th in Metro) Record 22-10-9 (53 pts; 3rd in Atlantic)
2.98 (7th in NHL) Goals Per Game 2.80 (12th in NHL)
2.52 (13th) Goals Against Per Game 2.34 (4th)
23.3% (4th) Power Play % 24.5% (2nd)
79.1% (22nd) Penalty Kill % 86.8% (4th)
Alexander Ovechkin (21 goals) Goal Leader Tomas Tatar (16 goals)
Nicklas Backstrom (39 points) Points Leader Henrik Zetterberg (36 points)

  • The Red Wings are 51-42-16 (W-L-T/OTL) all-time in the regular season against the Washington Capitals.

  • Last 10 Games: Washington 7-1-2, Detroit 5-3-2
  • Teemu Pulkkinen has 0 career points against Washington. WILL THE COLD STREAK END TONIGHT?!?/

Updates from Khan(!):

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p>Babcock said Zetterberg and Quincey good to go tonight. Howard starting. Only other change is Pulkkinen in for Cleary.</p>&mdash; Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AnsarKhanMLive/status/553961703290195968″>January 10, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

LGRW!

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