GameDay: Caps Vs. Bruins | 82 Game Marathon Kicks Off in Beantown

Game Notes

Going Green – Capitals defenseman Mike Green was a revelation a year ago, scoring twice on opening night to kick-start a record-setting season. Tonight he and the Capitals face off against the only defenseman to garner more Norris Trophy votes than Green, Boston’s Zdeno Chara. Despite his overwhelming offensive performance, Green appears to still have something to prove – ESPN.com surveyed six experts who named four other defensemen as favorites for the Norris this year. Add in the chance to represent his country at the 2010 Olympics and Green truly has an opportunity to grab the spotlight even more in 2009-10.

Start at the top – The top two teams in the Eastern Conference in 2008-09 square off to open the 2009-10 season. These two teams combined for four of the six members of the NHL First All-Star Team last season (Zdeno Chara, Mike Green, Alex Ovechkin and Tim Thomas) as well as the top two finishers in the Norris Trophy voting (Chara and Green).
Get it started – Washington is an even .500 in season openers in the club’s history (16-16-2) as it starts its 35th season. The Capitals have only faced the Bruins once in a season opener, a 4-3 Boston win on Oct. 8, 1987. Washington is 5-11-2 overall when opening the season on the road and is starting on the road for the fourth season in a row.
Jump start – This matches the earliest start in Capitals history; Washington opened on Oct. 1 once before, winning 4-1 at Toronto in 1997.
Intros needed – Washington’s two significant free agent acquisitions, Mike Knuble and Brendan Morrison, should make their Capitals debuts tonight. Knuble and Morrison have been teammates before at the University of Michigan and with Linkopings in Sweden in 2004-05. Four players – left wings Boyd Kane and Quintin Laing, defenseman Tyler Sloan and goaltender Semyon Varlamov – have made an NHL opening-night roster for the first time in their careers.
Familiar faces – Washington’s top five point scorers and top six goal scorers from last season are on the opening-night roster, as are seven of the top eight defensemen (by games played) and the top two goaltenders.
 

Popular guys – Each of Washington’s first three games are televised nationally in either the U.S. (tonight and Tuesday, VERSUS) or Canada (Saturday, CBC).

 

Caps Lineup & GameDay Notes

• as per Tarik @ CapsInsider:

Forwards

Ovechkin-Backstrom-Semin
Laich-Morrison-Knuble
Laing-Steckel-Clark
Kane-Gordon-Bradley

Defense
Morrisonn-Green
Poti-Jurcina
Erskine-Pothier

Goaltenders
Theodore
Varlamov

Lineup Notes

• Now, I realize I said that Boudreau is likely to give with the “safe” option in Theo, yet Gabby has surprised us before and it has yielded positive results for the Caps. That said, Bruce has still maintained that Jose is the starter and for that reason and that reason alone, it will be Jose Theodore opening in goal for the Capitals this evening.

• The Caps are healthy apart from Tomas Fleischmann and Eric Fehr, both of which won’t be out of the lineup long as they are recovering from injuries and should join the team within in the next 4 weeks.

• Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green and Alex Semin are all in top shape, having recovered from their respective injuries, bumps and bruises from last season, and are raring to go.

• Nicklas Backstrom is awesome.

• Mike Knuble is going to be a force on the top line and is going to make that top trio even harder to contain. Expect him to get in Thomas’ face quite abit tonight.

• Brendan Morrison appears to be fully healed from all of the injuries that prevented him from playing to the best of his capabilities over the last few seasons. If he can stay healthy and return to form, he is going to be an excellent compliment to super-sniper Alex Semin and yeo-man Brooks Laich.

• Although Quintan Laing wasn’t slated to play on the 3rd line with David Steckel and Chris Clark, he will bring 110% energy to that line and will pester the likes of Marc Savard, David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron mercilessly.

• Michael Nylander remains on the outside looking in(and a healthy scratch) and will continue to watch and wait as Caps GM George McPhee seeks to find a suitable home for the banished centerman.

The Opposition

Here is what the Bruins lineup should look like tonight:

Forwards

Milan Lucic- Marc Savard- Marco Sturm
Blake Wheeler- David Krejci- Michael Ryder
Mark Recchi- Patrice Bergeron- Chuck Kobasew
Shawn Thornton- Steve Begin- Byron Bitz

Defense

Zdeno Chara- Derek Morris
Andrew Ference- Dennis Wideman
Mark Stuart- Matt Hunwick

Goaltenders

Tim Thomas
Tuukka Rask

- As per Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe.

• It is interesting to note that David Krejci is going to be seeing his first game action this evening after taking all of the pre-season to recover from summer-time surgery. I expect that this is going to be a tentative move and that Krejci will not get too much ice-time. I would expect that Patrice Bergeron will likely step into the 2nd line role if, and likely when, Claude Julien determines that Krejci begins to fall behind by a step.
• The Bruins have a few new faces in town in Morris and Begin, while the return of Marco Sturm should help ease the loss of Phil Kessel to the Maple Leafs.
• These two teams finished 1 – 2 in the Eastern Conference last season and every game they played felt like a true playoff battle. It may be tough for both squads to gear into playoff form for the season opener, but there is no doubt that this will be an exceedingly exciting game between two of the top teams in the NHL.

• Washington took 3 out of the 4 games last season, but never by a wide margin and always while fighting off a rugged Bruins squad.

I have also written a GameDay Feature for Versus, which you can check out HERE.

steven.hindle@hotmail.com