Caps vs. Senators; Samsonov’s time to shine!

Tonight the Washington Capitals (34-12-5) head to the Canadian Tire Centre to face off with the Ottawa Senators (18-23-9). This is our second of three meetings in regular season play. The last meeting, January 7, the Caps punished Ottawa 6-1. Caps have won four of their last 5 games, after a game against Nashville earlier this week, in which Caps lost 5-4. Also a game which I lost my voice from screaming at the televison. Senators won their last game against Buffalo Sabres 5-2.

Alex Ovechkin did score against Nashville , to put him ninth in all time scoring in the NHL. This puts him one goal away from tying Mark Messier for eighth, also seven goals away from joining the prestigious club of players who have scored seven hundred or more goals. Another goal will also put Ovechkin two-hundred away from Wayne Gretzky’s all time leading scorer record of eight-hundred and ninety four.

As far as the Caps go, they are fifth in the league in scoring, averaging 3.57 goals per game. They are ninth in goals against them at 2.92 goals per game. The Caps are tied for eleventh on the man advantage, scoring 20.5% on power play chances. I personally feel this is something we desperately need to work on! However they are second in the league on penalty kill, stopping opponents 84.3% on the shorthand game. Tonight there is no change in the lines for Washington. The lines are as follows..

Washington Capitals

Ovechkin – Backstrom – Wilson

Vrana – Kuznetsov – Oshie

Hagelin – Eller – Panik

Leipsic – Dowd – Hathaway

Kempny – Carlson

Orlov – Jensen

Siegenthaler – Gudas

Ottawa Senators

Tkachuk – Pageau – Brown

Namestinov – Tierny – Duclair

Ennis – White – Batherson

Chlapik – Anisimov – Sabourin

Chabot – Hainsey

Burowiecki – Demelo

Reilley – Zaitsev

Anderson (7-12-1) .899sv% 3.25 GAA

In the crease tonight for Washington is Ilya Samsavov (15-2-1) .927 sv % 2.06 GAA. Samsonov is 9-0 on the road, a win tonight will put him in double digit wins for road games. The twenty two year old Russian has put together a six game win streak and is setting himself to be one of the next great netminders of our time! The puck drops at 7:30 tonight.

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