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The Washington Capitals travel to New York to take on the Islanders on Sunday at 12:30 PM ET on TNT.
The Capitals are 48-18-9 overall going into the game at home against the Chicago Blackhawks, and an NHL-best 24-10-3 on the road. Their 105 points still have them in contention with the Winnipeg Jets and Dallas Stars for the Presidents’ Trophy. The team leads the NHL with 271 goals, and its +67 differential is one of the league’s best.
As the Capitals make a run for their first Stanley Cup since 2018 and second overall, virtually all of the attention has been placed on the shoulders of captain Alex Ovechkin. The long-time franchise star leads the team with 39 goals. That also puts him just three shy of surpassing Wayne Gretzky’s all-time mark of 894, a record once thought unbreakable.
The host Islanders are on the verge of missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in three years. They are 32-32-10 and sit seven points out of the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot. New York is 17-15-5 at home entering tonight’s game against the Minnesota Wild. The team has lost four straight at UBS Arena and six straight overall.
This is the first of two games between the two long-time division foes in the next week and a half. The Capitals won the only previous meeting this season, a 5-4 overtime win in November at home. Tom Wilson had 2 goals for Washington, while Jakob Chychrun scored the winning goal in overtime and added an assist. Dylan Strome had 1 goal and 2 assists, and Connor McMichael had 3 assists.
Simon Holstrom scored twice to lead the Islanders, while Anders Lee contributed a goal and two assists. Let’s break down each team’s recent play while previewing this matchup and our Capitals @ Islanders NHL pick.
The Capitals are coming in on somewhat of a mini-slump. The Eastern Conference leaders have lost four of their last five games. The last time out, the Caps suffered their worst loss of the season, a 5-1 setback at the Carolina Hurricanes. Ovechkin scored for the fourth time in five games in a contest that featured 142 penalty minutes.
Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, Nic Dowd, and Dylan Strome all scored as the Capitals won, 4-3, at the Boston Bruins in their previous contest. Charlie Lindgren made 21 saves. Strome leads the team with 49 assists and 73 points, while Ovechkin and Aliaksei Protas each have 66 points, and Pierre-Luc Dubois has 64 points. The 39-year-old Ovechkin leads the team with 39 goals.
Logan Thompson (31-6-6) has been outstanding in goal after coming over from the Vegas Golden Knights. He is fourth in the league in wins and is in the league’s top 10 for goals allowed average (2.49) and save percentage (.910). He left the Hurricanes game the other night with an upper-body injury that has been nagging him for a while, so Lindgren (17-12-3, 2.66, .899) is available on deck.
It has been another dismal stretch for the Islanders, losers of six straight and 9-of-12. The team has been doubled up in its last four losses, to the Vancouver Canucks, Carolina, and twice to the Tampa Bay Lightning, as they were outscored, 20-10.
Bo Horvat scored a short-handed goal in a 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay Tuesday night, the Islanders’ last game before tonight’s contest with the Wild. He leads the team with 27 assists and 52 points, while Anders Lee has a team-high 27 goals.
Depending on if and how many goals Ovechkin scores tonight against the Blackhawks, this may be a moot point, but with the all-time goals scoring record in his sights, look for the veteran Russian to be sniping away throughout the game. He is the best bet to light up the lamp Sunday night at UBS Arena as well.
Brian has been writing about sports professionally for 25 years, specializing in the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, men's college basketball and football, and soccer. He covered high school, collegiate and professional sports in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area for two decades. His written work has appeared in several print and online publications since 1999.