The 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs are about a month away, but there certainly will be a postseason atmosphere inside the Verizon Center on Sunday night when the Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins meet for the second time this season.
The Bruins are tied with the Capitals, with a game in hand, for the first wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The B’s have put themselves in this position by going on a 5-game win streak and an 8-1-1 run in the last 10 games.
Boston likely will use the same lines and pairings it had in Saturday’s 2-0 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The fourth line and the Milan Lucic-Ryan Spooner-David Pastrnak line both played well against Pittsburgh.
The only uncertainty is in net. Tuukka Rask started versus the Penguins and earned a 30-save shutout. Starting him in both games of a back-to-back isn’t ideal, so it’s possible that B’s head coach Claude Julien could choose backup netminder Niklas Svedberg for Sunday’s matchup. The Swedish goaltender defeated the Detroit Red Wings last Sunday in the second game of a weekend back-to-back.
One player to watch is Capitals right winger and captain Alexander Ovechkin. He leads the NHL with 45 goals scored and has tallied an impressive 36 points (16 goals, 20 assists) in 34 career games against the Bruins. Ovechkin scored twice in Washington’s 4-0 win over the Bruins at TD Garden on Oct. 11.
Here are the projected lineups for both teams:
BOSTON BRUINS (36-22-10, fourth in Atlantic)
Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-Reilly Smith
Milan Lucic-Ryan Spooner-David Pastrnak
Chris Kelly-Carl Soderberg-Loui Eriksson
Daniel Paille-Gregory Campbell-Maxime Talbot
Zdeno Chara-Dougie Hamilton
Matt Bartkowski-Dennis Seidenberg
Torey Krug-Adam McQuaid
Tuukka Rask
WASHINGTON CAPITALS (36-23-10, fourth in Metropolitan)
Alex Ovechkin-Nicklas Backstrom-Marcus Johansson
Curtis Glencross-Evgeny Kuznetsov-Troy Brouwer
Jason Chimera-Eric Fehr-Joel Ward
Brooks Laich-Chris Conner-Tom Wilson
Nate Schmidt-John Carlson
Karl Alzner-Matt Niskanen
Tim Gleason-Mike Green
Braden Holtby
Thumbnail photo via Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports Images
