Toronto Maple Leafs @ Washington Capitals - Game 68
07:30 PM at Capital One Arena
Watch on: TVAS, SN, TNT, MAX

The Leafs last game was away on March 19 against the Philadelphia Flyers, which Toronto lost by a score of 4-3 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 38-20-9 for a 0.634 Points %.

The Washington Capitals last played away on March 18 against the Calgary Flames. The Capitals won by a score of 5-2 in regulation, and their current league record is 33-25-9 for a 0.560 Points %.

Them

They want to win this one. That's the key point about the Capitals right now. They aren't a very good team, and they looked all season like they were out of contention for post-season play. But the Metro is the Metro, and someone is going to have to step up and actually take a playoff spot. It might be Washington.

They have 75 points and are three behind the Flyers for third place. They are one point behind the Red Wings for the last wild card, and they have two games in hand on both teams.

This isn't going to be over until soon.

The Capitals don't look like the most likely candidate on paper. Frankly, the Islanders do, but they've wandered off into a slump. Washington is bad at Corsi and Expected Goals at five-on-five. This is a Capitals' core behaviour, but now instead of mediocre, they are bottom quarter of the league bad.

Their once fantastic power play is now mediocre and they score under expected.

The only thing they have going for them is that in a season where a lot of the good teams have bad goalies, they have an average result.

Lines

From today's skate.

Alex Ovechkin - Connor McMichael - T.J. Oshie (likely to play but not at skate)
Ivan Miroshnichenko - Dylan Strome - Tom Wilson
Max Pacioretty - Hendrix Lapierre - Sonny Milano
Beck Malenstyn - Nic Dowd - Aliaksei Protas

Martin Fehervary - John Carlson
Rasmus Sandin - Nick Jensen
Alexander Alexeyev - Trevor van Riemsdyk

Charlie Lindgren - starter
Darcy Kuemper

Us

Ryan Reaves didn't play last night after his dull and childish staged fight against Nick Deslauriers.

I was very sad to hear yesterday that Chris Simon died at the age of 52, leaving behind a grieving family. He was an enforcer in the NHL who played for multiple teams and engaged in countless fights. Condolences to his family and friends.

Lines today are unknown so far, but it's unlikely much will have changed.

Lines

David Alter via Daily Faceoff from last night:

Tyler Bertuzzi - Auston Matthews - Pontus Holmberg
Bobby McMann - Max Domi - William Nylander
Matthew Knies - John Tavares - Nicholas Robertson
Connor Dewar - David Kämpf - Ryan Reaves -??

Morgan Rielly - T.J. Brodie
Simon Benoit - Jake McCabe
Joel Edmundson - Timothy Liljegren

Joe Woll - assumed starter
Ilya Samsonov or Martin Jones

The Game

Tonight is the Washington Pride Game! Happy Pride, Washington.

Otherwise, it's just natural and human that they want to win this more than the Leafs do. But it would be very good if the Leafs laid down a good performance in front of Joe Woll.

Game Coverage