Per reports from the morning skate, Troy Brouwer will return to the lineup (and the second line) for tonight’s game against the Panthers after sitting out Tuesday night, Aaron Volpatti will be scratched to make room, Wojtek Wolski will skate on the fourth line, and Jeff Schultz will play in place of Tom Poti in the third pairing of blueliners. So expect the lines and defensive pairings in front of Braden Holtby (who is making his eleventh-straight start) to look like this:
Matt Hendricks — Mike Ribeiro – Alex Ovechkin
Eric Fehr – Nicklas Backstrom – Troy Brouwer
Jason Chimera – Jay Beagle – Joel Ward
Wojtek Wolski – Mathieu Perreault – Joey Crabb
That leaves Poti and Volpatti as healthy scratches, and Mike Green, Brooks Laich, Jack Hillen and Marcus Johansson out with injuries. Also of note, Philipp Grubauer will back-up (and hopefully this time only back-up) Holtby, as Michal Neuvirth is under the weather again.