Game 72: Winnipeg Jets vs Washington Capitals pre-game report

While folks aren’t hitting the panic button quite yet a loss to the last place in the east Sabres coupled with Gabriel Vilardi being out week-to-week and then you add in the Stars keep winning (now six points back with a game in hand) and it’s getting a bit tense in Winnipeg.

Which is why a date with the 1st overall Washington Capitals might be just what the doctor ordered in terms of getting this team up for a big challenge. They haven’t had a challenge like this since the Stars came to town a little while back.

From Tarik El-Bashir who covers the Caps we get this update on defenceman Jakob Chychrun:

“Jakob Chychrun did not practice today after suffering a skate cut to his arm/wrist in Saturday’s game. Coach Carbery said he expects the Dman to travel but did acknowledge there’s some concern about his availability for WPG.”

While we will have to wait and see about his status what we do know is this Washington team is red-hot coming into tonight’s game. They’ve won four straight and are 9-1-0 in their last ten. They remain the only team that has clinched a playoff spot (which would change with a Winnipeg win).

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo
Ehlers-Lowry-Appleton
Niederreiter-Namestnikov-Perfetti
Tanev-Barron-Kupari

Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Schenn
Stanley-Miller

Hellebuyck

Capitals projected lines & D pairs:

Ovechkin – Strome – Protas
McMichael – Dubois – Wilson
Mangiapane – Eller – Raddysh
Duhaime – Down – Beauvillier

Sandin – Carlson
Chychrun – van Riemsdyk
Fehervary – Roy

Thompson

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7 PM CDT. Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. You can join us on our YouTube channel for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show around 9:40 PM CDT as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.