Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Washington Capitals (5-7-0, 10 points) and Philadelphia Flyers (3-8-0, six points) take the ice against one another for the first of five meetings between the Metropolitan Division rivals live from Wells Fargo Center. The game can be live streamed here. Washington fans can hear all the action by tuning into WFED-AM 1500 while Philadelphia fans can do the same on 97.5 FM the Fanatic.
Both of these teams find themselves down towards the bottom of the division as the visiting Capitals enter play in sixth place and are eight points behind the division-leading Pittsburgh Penguins while the Flyers are in dead last and are 12 points behind the Pens.
Washington enters the game without captain Alex Ovechkin, who leads the team with 15 points and is second in the NHL with 10 goals while adding five assists thus far this season due to an upper-body injury sustained during their game with the Vancouver Canucks Monday.
"I think he has what, 30 percent of our team's goals?" Troy Brouwer told CSNWashington.com. "So anytime you miss a player like that it's pretty detrimental. We're going into a building that's tough to go into and against a team that has a lot of offensive weapons. We've got to find ways to keep them off the scoreboards before we go on the offensive."
The Flyers are entering the game after trading away Maxime Talbot to Colorado in exchange for Steve Downie, who has one goal in 11 games thus far this season.
"We felt we needed something to stir the pot and I think Steve is going to help us in that regard," general manager Paul Holmgren told NHL.com.
The Capitals, meanwhile, will try to navigate with changed up line combinations in Ovechkin's absence. With the captain out, Nicklas Backstrom leads the team's healthy players with 12 points off of two goals and 10 assists for 12 points while Mikhail Grabovski (five goals, five assists) and Marcus Johansson (no goals, ten assists) each have 10 points.
Philadelphia's offense has struggled but has been paced by Vincent Lecavalier, whose seven points lead the team off of five goals and two assists.
Philadelphia will look to get its offense going against Braden Holtby, who is 4-5-0 with a 3.07 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage and is likely to get the start. Flyers backstop Steve Mason is 3-6-0 with a 2.25 GAA and a .928 save percentage.
The Capitals look to play well without their captain while the Flyers hope to claw their way out of the Metropolitan Division basement when these teams hit the ice tonight at Wells Fargo Center.
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