Game #42 Washington Capitals at Montreal Canadians

Where: Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec

When: January 5, 2008, 12:30 PM

History:
Caps Record on this Date: 5-4-3-0
Caps Game 42 Record: 12-17-3-0
All-Time vs. MON: 46-64-17-1
Last Season vs. MON: 1-3-0
Last Meeting: 12/20/07, WAS 2 MON 5

This Year:
WAS Record: 16-20-5
Standings Points: 37
Division Rank: 4^th
Conference Rank: 14^th
Last Game: 1/3/2008, WAS 0 BOS 2
Streak: Loss 1

MON Record: 20-13-7
Standings Points: 47
Division Rank: 2^nd
Conference Rank: 4^th
Last Game: 1/3/2008, MON 6 TAM 3
Streak: Won 1

Probable Line-Ups:
Washington
Forward Line 1: 8 OVECHKIN, 19 BACKSTROM, 25 KOZLOV
Forward Line 2: 43 FLEISCHMANN, 92 NYLANDER, 28 SEMIN
Forward Line 3: 53 LAING, 39 STECKEL, 10 BRADLEY
Forward Line 4: 87 BRASHEAR, 15 GORDON, 21 LAICH
Defense Pair 1: 26 MORRISONN, 52 GREEN
Defense Pair 2: 23 JURCINA, 55 SCHULTZ
Defense Pair 3: 4 ERSKINE, 44 EMINGER
Goalie: 37 KOLZIG
Back-up Goalie: 35 CASSIVI

Montreal
Forward Line 1: 21 HIGGINS, 14 PLEKANEC, 27 KOVALEV
Forward Line 2: 46 A. KOSTITSYN, 11 KOIVU, 73 RYDER
Forward Line 3: 74 S. KOSTITSYN, 40 LAPIERRE, 84 LATENDRESSE
Forward Line 4: 6 KOSTOPOULOS, 28 CHIPCHURA, 25 DANDENAULT
Defense Pair 1: 44 HAMRLIK, 8 KOMISAREK
Defense Pair 2: 79 MARKOV, 51 BOUILLON
Defense Pair 3: 3 O’BYRNE, 26 GORGES
Goalie: 39 HUET
Back-up Goalie: 31 PRICE

Injuries:
Washington – 14 FEHR (hip) IR, 17 CLARK (groin) IR, 1 JOHNSON (knee) IR, 28 SEMIN (tailbone) DTD, 3 POTI (upper body) DTD, 2 POTHIER (upper body) DTD
Montreal – 79 MARKOV (leg) DTD, 3 O’BYRNE (thumb fracture) IR, 20 SMOLINSKI (knee) IR, 22 BEGIN (shoulder) IR

Caps Milestones:
Matt Pettinger needs 3 Points to reach 100 for his career
Alexander Semin needs 5 Shots on Goal to reach 400 for his career
Michal Nylander needs 1 Goal to reach 200 for his career
Donald Brashear needs 3 Points to reach 200 for his career

Preview:
The Capitals limp out of Boston with another injury. Brian Pothier is questionable for tomorrow’s game with the dreaded upper body injury. Maybe Steve Eminger will get a chance to play. The Caps could not put anything past the Bruins and Boston effectively stopped Alex Ovechkin with a blaket defense on the Caps forward. The Canadians don’t have the same type of personnel as Boston, so look for Alex to get a little more running room in this game and he loves to play in Montreal. His good friend Andrei Markov will try and stop him but hopefully this time around the bounces will go the Caps way. If you remember the Caps completely dominated the first game everywhere but on the scoreboard. I think Ovechkin with a hat trick in this one.

Joe’s prediction: Caps 5 MON 2