Coach said it Tuesday, there is a huge mental component to playing the game of hockey and the game against the Flyers has “been intense, so I don’t expect anything different.” We expect speed, hitting, fighting, penalties, and hopefully lots of SOG leading to goals on the board! Not only will the players need to keep their feet moving they will need to have their heads in the game for 60 solid minutes. Both teams are coming in off a loss and both looking to gain a solid spot in the Metropolitan Division.
The Flyers agree, writes the Courier Post in Philly, and both will be fighting hard for the two points.
Trotz specifically called out Wayne Simmonds as one of the opponents to watch in the game. Philly.com quotes Simmonds as saying: “We owe them. We owe them something. They’re coming into our building, so we need to play a good game.” He too expects an intense game.
“We’ve reset the bar a little bit for ourselves in terms of expectations — that we can beat anybody, we can go on a run and be competitive every night,” general manager Ron Hextall — CSN-Philly
Caps need to be prepared for a tough time getting the goal past Steve Mason while the Flyers think Justin Williams, in addition to Braden Holtby could cause them some trouble, so says Philly.com today.
Looks like Andre Burakovsky is back in tonight for the Caps. We’ve seen him fine tuning his craft at practice and Captain Ovi seems to be wishpering in his ear!
The expected lines for the Washington Capitals:
Sanford, Chorney, Connolly scratched. Grubauer goalie in waiting with Holtby in the net.
| LW | C | RW |
|---|---|---|
 Alex Ovechkin |
 Evgeny Kuznetsov |
 Justin Williams |
 Marcus Johansson |
 Nicklas Backstrom |
 T.J. Oshie |
 Jakub Vrana |
 Lars Eller |
 Andre Burakovsky |
 Daniel Winnik |
 Jay Beagle |
 Tom Wilson |
| Defensive Pairings | |
|---|---|
 Karl Alzner |
 John Carlson |
 Dmitri Orlov |
 Matt Niskanen |
 Brooks Orpik |
 Nate Schmidt |
In case you missed it, Neuvy is out for several weeks and Steve Mason should be in the net tonight.
The expected lines for the Philadelphia Flyers:
| LW | C | RW |
|---|---|---|
 Michael Raffl |
 Claude Giroux |
 Jakub Voracek |
 Travis Konecny |
 Brayden Schenn |
 Wayne Simmonds |
 Chris VandeVelde |
 Pierre-Édouard Bellemare |
 Roman Lyubimov |
 Taylor Leier |
 Boyd Gordon |
 Nick Cousins |
| Defensive Pairings | |
|---|---|
 Michael Del Zotto |
 Radko Gudas |
 Ivan Provorov |
 Andrew MacDonald |
 Brandon Manning |
 Shayne Gostisbehere |
Lines provided by Daily Faceoff