Pregame Notes: Washington Capitals at. Colorado Avalanche

 The Caps are back West for a quick two game road trip this weekend. The Caps are coming off of a great effort despite the loss in Philly, and will look to beat the playoff hungry Aves how are running out of time. Here is the lineup based on the morning skate.

Forwards:

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

Defense and Goalies:

Schmidt-Carlson
Alzner-Niskanen
Orpik-Orlov


Holtby
Grubauer


Other Notes:

*Nick Backstrom is nursing a upper body injury and will be held out tonight just to be safe. With that we will see Marcus Johansson play on the first line. This will be a good chance for him to get more involved offensively.

*T.J Oshie ended up playing on Wednesday but was on the 4th line to kind of limit his minutes. It appears he is fine and will be on the top line again tonight.

*Braden Holtby is still within reach of the wins record, so he will get the first of the back to backs this weekend. We will see if he can get it but it will be hard because he will not play the rest of the games this season. Also, I thought he was phenomenal in Philly.

*The Aves are a team that are still fighting for a playoff spot but are running out of time, they are going to be a desperate team tonight. I expect them to come after the Caps hard, so the Caps will have to match that intensity.

*Stan Galiev will get the call tonight with Backstrom out the Caps need another forward. I believe that he is getting better with each game he plays, he is still a work in progress but he is getting better.

*Overall I don't have much for this game, the regular season is coming closer to an end and really the most important thing for the Caps to do is to stay healthy but they also need to just play hard going into the playoffs as well.


Gametime 9:00 p.m on CSN