Pregame Notes: Washington Capitals vs. Toronto Maple Leafs

 The Caps are back at it again tonight at Verizon Center as they welcome the Toronto Maple Leafs. This will be the 2nd of what will be a very busy week for the boys. Here is the projected lineup based
on Barry Trotz meeting with the media.

Forwards:

Ovechkin-Backstrom-Oshie
Burakovsky-Kuznetsov-Williams
Chimera-Johansson-Wilson
Winnik-Richards-Beagle


Defense and Goalies:

Alzner-Niskanen
Orpik-Orlov
Weber-Chorney


Grubauer
Holtby


Other Notes:

*Daniel Winnik will make his Caps debut tonight. I expect him to get some penalty kill minutes as well as playing on the 4th line.

*Brooks Laich spent a long time as a Cap, and tonight he will play a game at the Verizon Center for the first time wearing a different uniform. I expect a emotional moment when the game starts but then both the Caps and Brooksie will be focused on the task at hand.

*The Caps have to learn to get off to better starts, tonight they need to as the Leafs have a ton of youngsters in their lineup and the Caps have to take advantage of that.

*Philipp Grubauer will start in net tonight as he will get a couple games this week with the busy schedule. The Leafs will go with Jonathan Bernier.

*Mike Weber made his debut last night and will stay in the lineup tonight. However, we will see Taylor Chorney back in tonight as Nate Schmidt will take a seat. The Caps were a little loosy goosy last night at times on defense so Trotz is making a bit of a change.

*Another former Cap Connor Carrick should be in the lineup tonight for the Leafs as well. Will be interesting to see how he does as he is going to get a lot of games with the Leafs.

*Overall this will be a good chance for the Caps to start a new winning streak against a team that has the future on their minds. I would like to see them play a solid 60 minutes, limit defensive mistakes and have a strong 1st period. We will see how things go as another two points will be on the line.


Gametime 7:00 p.m on CSN