Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Washington Capitals (18-13-3, 42 points) and Carolina Hurricanes (14-13-7, 35 points) go head-to-head live from the PNC Arena in North Carolina for the third of five meetings against each other this season. The game can be live streamed here. Washington fans can hear all of the action by adjusting their radios to WFED 1500 while Carolina fans can do the same on 99.9 The Fan.
Washington enters play off of a loss and will look to play better against Carolina this season while Carolina had a five-day off period coming off of a win. The Hurricanes have defeated the Capitals in the two prior meetings, winning 3-2 on Oct. 10 and 4-1 on Dec. 3 with both games being played in Washington.
The Capitals enter play with Alex Ovechkin looking for his 400th career goal in his 634th game. Ovechkin, who has eight goals in eight games, will look to become the 89th player to reach the milestone while the team hopes to bounce back from a 5-2 loss against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday.
"It's a big number. It's going to be nice to do it earlier and just don't think about it," Ovechkin said after practice Thursday, according to NHL.com.
Ovechkin leads the NHL with 28 goals and paces the Caps with 38 points while adding 10 assists. Niklas Backstrom has points in four straight games for a total of 37 off of eight goals and 29 assists while Mikhail Grabovski has found the twine nine times and added 18 assists for 27 points. Grabovski is questionable with the flu.
The Hurricanes are coming off of a 5-1 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes in their last game last Saturday to close out a road trip.
"It's great that we did what we did [on the road trip], but now the big games - divisional and conference games - are important. It starts tomorrow night," coach Kirk Muller told NHL.com. "We've got to get that focus back that we had on the trip and get ready to roll."
Captain Eric Staal has led the Hurricanes with 28 points off of nine goals and 19 assists while Jeff Skinner has scored a goal in three consecutive games and has lit the lamp 12 times while adding nine assists for 21 points and Andrej Sekera has found the back of the net six times and added 12 assists for 18 points.
In net, Justin Peters may start for Carolina and is 7-8-2 with a 2.16 goals-against average and a .929 save percentage while Braden Holtby will likely be the backstop for Washington and is 13-10-1 with a 2.92 GAA and a .917 save percentage.
Ovechkin looks for his 400th career goal while the Hurricanes hope that five days off won't make them rusty when these teams hit the ice at the PNC Arena tonight in North Carolina.
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