With no morning skate, it’s not clear how Barry Trotz intends to deploy his troops this afternoon, but based on yesterday’s practice, here’s what we could be in for (including Andre Burakovsky going from healthy scratch to one of the best gigs in hockey), with Braden Holtby making a 15th-straight start in net:
Alex Ovechkin – Nicklas Backstrom – Andre Burakovsky
Marcus Johansson – Evgeny Kuznetsov – Troy Brouwer
Brooks Laich – Eric Fehr – Joel Ward
Jason Chimera – Jay Beagle – Tom Wilson
That would leave Justin Peters backing up Holtby, Michael Latta and Nate Schmidt out as healthy scratches, and Dmitry Orlov, John Erskine and Aaron Volpatti still on the IR.