Game 13 Preview: Washington Capitals @ Pittsburgh Penguins 2/14/2021: lines, how to watch

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WHO: Washington Capitals (6-3-3, 15 points, 3rd place Eastern Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (6-5-11, 13 points, 5th place in the Eastern Division)

When: 3:00 PM East

How to watch: Aired nationally in America on NBC

Opponent Track: The Caps have been eliminated since last Sunday, three games canceled last week due to excessive COVID issues with Philadelphia and Buffalo. It was a good time for a break for Washington, who lost all three games they played in February against three different opponents (PHI, BOS, NYR) by regulation. The Caps linger (hopefully this time socially distant) and play the Pens again on Tuesday evening.

Pens run forward: It’s game 3 of 10 because you only play the Caps of Islanders for the Pens this month. Today and Tuesday, as said, Washington is in the ‘Burgh. The Pens then host NYI on Thursday and Saturday of this week, before Pittsburgh travels to DC next week for road races next Tuesday (2/23) and Thursday (2/25). The pens will then stay on the road and head back to the island for two more road races @NYI to close out the month.

Season Series: The Pens made a 4-3 shootout decision on January 17, and then Sidney Crosby made the OT winner two days later. This week, Games 3 and 4 are of the PIT / WSH season series, with Games 5/6 releasing in DC next week. Then it will be a long time before the schedule between the two ends with Games 7 and 8 on April 29 and May 1, also in DC.

Recent History: The Pens are 8-2-0 vs. the Caps at home in the last 10 games, and 4-1-0 vs. Washington since the start of the 2019-20 season (with the Caps 1-2-2 on their side of the results with some OT / SO losses).

SBN Team counterpart: It’s our friends at Japers Rink to watch and comment on the news.

Player statistics at a glance

via hockeydb:

—Justin Schultz started well, but missed the last four games with an injury. As we’ll see below, he practiced yesterday and is expected to be in the lineup today.

– It feels like many of the Rumen’s best veterans got off to a slow start into the pandemic season without much preseason. The same can’t be said for Caps with Backstrom and Ovechkin’s vets who are off to a very productive start, doubly impressive given that Ovechkin’s season was interrupted by a seven-day quarantine as he was in close contact with Samsonov.

—Lots of unique goal scorers in this game. Washington is 2nd in the NHL with 18 different players who have scored goals so far this year (Columbus, 20, is first). The pens have 16 different goalscorers in the season.

Possible lines

FORWARD

Alex Ovechkin – Nicklas Backstrom – Tom Wilson

Jakub Vrana – Evgeny Kuznetsov – TJ Oshie

Richard Panik – Lars Eller – Conor Sheary

Carl Hagelin – Nic Dowd – Garnet Hathaway

DEFENDERS

Brendon Dillon / John Carlson

Zdeno Chara / Justin Schultz

Dmitry Orlov / Nick Jensen

Possible starting goalkeeper 😕

Scratches: Daniel Sprong, Jonas Siegenthaler, Trevor van Riemsdyk

IR: Michal Kempny (LTIR), Henrik Lundqvist (LTIR)

—Samsonov has not played Rumen since Jan. 17 due to his recovery from a reported positive COVID test. Coach Peter Laviolette said he expects a “full compliment” from players, which is good news for the Caps as Kuznetsov has been out since January 19 for similar reasons.

And now for the pens …

—The number of goals that Crosby and Malkin score in day games is truly astonishing. Great players score a lot of goals in every split you can think of, but they’ve certainly popped up for the typical nationally aired matinee games.

Lines

Forward

Jake Guentzel – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust

Jason Zucker – Evgeni Malkin – Kasperi Kapanen

Zach Aston-Reese – Teddy Blueger – Brandon Tanev

Drew O’Connor Mark Jankowski – Colton Scevior

Defense

PO Joseph / Kris Letang

Mike Matheson / John Marino

Chad Ruhwedel / Cody Ceci

Possible starting goalkeeper: Casey DeSmith

Scratches: Sam Lafferty, Yannick Weber

IR: Juuso Riikola, Marcus Pettersson, Evan Rodrigues, Brian Dumoulin, Jared McCann

Taxi team: Alex D’Orio, Maxime Lagace, Anthony Angello, Kevin Czucman

—Marcus Pettersson could be an option to play today, but that won’t be known until playtime gets closer. He wasn’t licensed to play in games since yesterday, but he’s practicing with contact, so it won’t be too long now.

– After playing well on Thursday, it should be DeSmith’s crease for another game. DeSmith has also been 2-0 against the Caps so far this season, starting and winning both PIT / WSH games. However, he conceded a total of seven goals in those games.

Protect the paint can

There are currently no fans in the stands, but the pens were much better at home this season than on the road. So maybe the next four games are all in PPG Paints Arena thankfully. From the team’s PR department:

The Penguins return home to the PPG Paints Arena where they will play their next four games before setting off for a four game road trip. Pittsburgh (4-0-0) remains one of only four teams without any loss at home, along with the Tampa Bay Lightning (6-0-0), Boston Bruins (4-0-0) and Carolina Hurricanes (3 -0-0). Below is a stats for the team at home and their NHL ranks:

Stat total rank

Points% 1.00 T-1e

Goals / GM 3.50 13th

Power Play% 33.3 10th

Shots against / GM 27.3 T-6

Faceoff% 57.6 2nd

3 keys to the game:

  1. Attack comes to life … The pins scoring a lot of goals has never really been a problem against the capitals. Pittsburgh has averaged 4.8 goals in the last 10 games against the Caps, and they’ve scored an average of 4.5 goals / game in two games this year (though that counts a shootout goal). Whether it’s Vitek Vanecek (whose performance dropped in February after winning NHL rookie of the month in January) or Ilya Samsonov, Pittsburgh has lit the target light on a regular basis.
  2. Hop on earlyThe caps have been out for a week, can the pens jump on them early? It might be more difficult than that – Washington outshone the opponents 15-10 in the first period of this season. The Pins score 12-19 in the first, and have so far trailed the first break in an astonishing and disturbing 9 out of 12 games. However, early bouts may not need much: the Caps have won only 2 out of 7 games after the first period (2-2-3 record) and the Pens have fought back for a 4-4-1 record while trailing. after a.
  3. Powerplay struggles … again. The Pens power play was still great on the schnide, now 1-22 in the last eight games, while 2 SHG was against in this part. They won’t get much mercy, Washington’s power game is at the top of the league right now, hitting 37.0% right now. If the pens have a 0-fer game on the PP again, they probably won’t win today.

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