Pregame Notes: Washington Capitals at. Nashville Predators

 The Caps begin a three game Western Conference road trip tonight at Bridgestone Arena to take on Barry Trotz former team the Nashville Predators. Here is the lineup based on the morning skate.

Forwards:

Ovechkin-Backstrom-Oshie
Burakovsky-Kuznetsov-Williams
Chimera-Johansson-Wilson
Laich-Richards-Latta


Defense and Goalies:

Schmidt-Carlson
Alzner-Niskanen
Orlov-Chorney

Holtby
Grubauer


Other Notes:

*Marcus Johansson appears to be back in the lineup tonight as he returns from a minor upper body injury. Mojo will also be back on the first power play unit.

*Brooks Orpik did make the trip this week, it remains unclear when he will return to the lineup. However, he is getting closer.

*The Caps have sent Paul Carey and Connor Carrick back to the Hershey Bears yesterday. Again it is a sign that the Caps injury situation is getting better.

*Tonight the Caps will get their first look at Ryan Johansen in a Predators uniform, he always gave them trouble when he was with Columbus.

*Tonight we will have a good goalie matchup as Pekka Rinne and Braden Holtby will face each other. Both were All-Stars and coached and developed by Mitch Korn. The Caps will need to put a lot of pressure on Rinne to score enough to win the game in my opinion.

*Another duo the Caps must watch out for of course will be Shea Weber and Roman Josi, the Caps can't give them too much room to shoot the puck especially on the power play.

*Overall this will be a good test for the boys tonight in Smashville. I expect it to be a good heavy game that very well could be a 2-1, 3-2 close game that comes down to the end. We will see if the boys can win their 4th in a row.


Gametime 8:00 p.m on CSN