The Caps continue to have a banged-up blue line, as they will be without Mike Green, Patrick Wey and Jack Hillen when they take on the Blues tonight. The forward lines get a bit of a revamp, as well, and Braden Holtby gets the nod after Jaroslav Halak expressed a desire to not face his former team (a fact which Adam Oates made sure to make public, nice guy that he is).
Here’s a look at what tonight’s forward lines and defensive pairings could look like for the Caps in St. Louis tonight:
Mikhail Grabovski – Nicklas Backstrom – Alex Ovechkin
Evgeny Kuznetsov – Marcus Johansson – Troy Brouwer
Jason Chimera – Eric Fehr – Joel Ward
Aaron Volpatti – Jay Beagle – Tom Wilson
John Erskine – Dmitry Orlov
That leaves Green, Wey, Hillen, Brooks Laich and possibly Dustin Penner out with injuries, and Halak serving as Holtby’s backup for the evening.