Per Alex Prewitt, Barry Trotz has returned to sanity and put Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom back together again for Game 3, after the two sparked Friday night’s comeback. Andre Burakovsky and Michael Latta remain in the pressbox for the team’s first trip to Nassau Coliseum, and it does sound like Braden Holtby is ready to go – for real this time. So with that in mind, here’s what the lines and defensive pairings should look like in front of him:
Alex Ovechkin – Nicklas Backstrom – Joel Ward
Marcus Johansson – Evgeny Kuznetsov – Troy Brouwer
Jason Chimera – Eric Fehr – Jay Beagle
Curtis Glencross – Brooks Laich – Tom Wilson
That leaves Justin Peters backing up Holtby, Burakovsky and Latta out as healthy scratches, and Dmitry Orlov and John Erskine remaining out with injuries.