Carolina Hurricanes vs Washington Capitals: Game Preview and Storm Advisory

The Carolina Hurricanes are right back at it again after suffering a 3-2 loss Thursday night at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs. This time the Washington Capitals are in town as they look to ride their momentum from a 7-2 throttling of Columbus last night.

The season series between the Capitals and Canes has been very lopsided with Washington winning both games by a combined score of 8-2. The two teams meet tonight and then one more time during the regular season in Washington on March 28.

For Carolina, Rod Brind’Amour will not be happy about his teams performance Thursday night in Toronto. Jaccob Slavin had an very uncharacteristically bad night, the top two lines were non-existent, and Frederik Andersen let in multiple soft goals that he should have saved. On the positive side, defenseman Tony DeAngelo will likely return to the lineup tonight and should help provide some offense which the team is in need of.

The Capitals dominated their game Thursday night but they did lose T.J. Oshie in the process. Oshie left late in the third period with a lower body injury and his status for tonight is unknown. Washington has been quite hot in March having only lost one time which was an overtime loss to Edmonton. Alex Ovechkin continues to rack up goals this year and now sits at 37 for the season and 74 points overall. Carolina will need to find a way to keep #8 off the scoresheet, or at least off the scoresheet more than once, if they want to win this one.

Game Notes

• Washington’s 4-0 shutout of the Canes back on March 3 was only the second time Carolina has been shutout this season.
• Carolina has now lost four games in March (three of which were in regulation), meaning a loss tonight would officially put the Canes below .500 so far in March. The most losses in a single month so far was in November when Carolina lost six games.
• Vitek Vanecek was the first star for Washington last night meaning we will likely see Ilya Samsonov vs Antti Raanta tonight in net. Samsonov was in net on November 28th when Washington defeated Carolina 4-2.
• The Capitals powerplay unit has not been nearly as deadly as they have historically been sitting at just 19.2% which is 22nd in the league. That being said they scored twice with the man advantage in their last meeting against the Canes on March 3rd.
• Carolina has been dominate at home going 23-4-2 so far this season while the Capitals have been better on the road than at home going 19-7-5 away from Capital One Area.

Storm Advisory

• Who says no? Evaluating subscribers’ Hurricanes trade proposals for Jakob Chychrun, Mark Giordano and more featuring Tripp Tracy. [The Athletic $]
• Claude Giroux becomes the latest member of the 1,000 game club. [Broad Street Hockey]
• Robin Lehner is in danger of missing the remainder of the regular season putting Vegas in an unfamiliar position of possibly missing the playoffs. [THN]
• NHL asks PWHPA and PHF to meet in pursuit of forming a unified women’s league. [Sportsnet]
• 32 Thoughts: Trade deadline fallout coming fast and furious. [Sportsnet]
• NHL Power Rankings: 1-32 poll, plus the best trade of the past 10 years for each team. [ESPN]