Game 50 preview: Washington Capitals @ Ottawa Senators
A preview of the game between the Ottawa Senators and Washington Capitals on 5 February 2015.
It's Chris Phillips night in Ottawa tonight, as the Senators face the Washington Capitals.
Robin Lehner will start again with Chris Phillips and Eric Gryba coming back in to the lineup for Patrick Wiercioch and Mark Borowiecki. The morning skate was optional today, so the lineups are a guess - basically the same as last game, with the exception of 4-62 in for 46-74.
MacArthur - Zibanejad - Ryan
Hoffman - Turris - Lazar
Michalek - Legwand - Stone
Condra - Pageau - Neil
Methot - Karlsson
Cowen - Ceci
Phillips - Gryba
Lehner (starter)
Hammond
Some notes for tonight:
- You may have heard about this, but Chris Phillips will set a franchise record for regular season games played with 1,179 tonight
- Per Ian Mendes, Ovechkin asked how many games Phillips had played - when told, his response was "Jesus....that's a lot of games."
- During his 1,000th game, Chris Phillips had a pair of goals. Do we see the return of Big Game Chris tonight?
- Robin Lehner is starting his fourth game in a row tonight - last time that happened was last March
- The Senators has kept Ovechkin (relatively) in check during his visits to Ottawa, where he has only averaged a point per game. Yeah, that's relatively in check.
- Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman are both still in the top 5 for rookie scoring. Hoffman is tied for the lead in rookie goals.
Here are some stats for the two teams tonight. All stats are from NHL.com except Corsi and Fenwick are from naturalstattrick.com.
| Category | Ottawa | Washington | ||
| Player | # | Player | # | |
| Goals | Mike Hoffman | 17 | Alex Ovechkin | 31 |
| Assists | Bobby Ryan | 23 | Nicklas Backstrom | 38 |
| Points | Bobby Ryan | 37 | Nicklas Backstrom | 54 |
| Shots | Erik Karlsson | 187 | Alex Ovechkin | 251 |
| Average Ice time | Erik Karlsson | 27:02 | John Carlson | 23:16 |
| Category | Ottawa | Washington | ||
| # | Rank | # | Rank | |
| Goals For | 2.74 | 14th | 2.94 | 7th |
| Goals Against | 2.74 | 20th | 2.45 | 8th |
| Corsi % | 49.89% | 18th | 51.14% | 13th |
| Fenwick % | 47.69% | 24th | 51.29% | 14th |
| Shots For | 29.9 | 16th | 30.0 | 13th |
| Shots Against | 32.6 | 26th | 28.9 | 12th |
