Capitals-Devils Preview

Wednesday night’s skirmish between the Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals was a one-sided affair.

The Caps scored three first period goals for the second consecutive game en route to a dominating 5-1 win over Carolina.  

Alexander Semin led the good guys in red with three assists and two goals, finishing his evening with five points. 

More importantly, he captured the league lead in points scored (27) from Pittsburgh forward Evgeni Malkin. 

Semin is making professional hockey look like child’s play, and providing Caps fans with reason to raise their terrible towels.

And now with fellow line-mate Alexander Ovechkin starting to heat up, the sky’s the limit for what their team can accomplish.

Tonight’s victim is the New Jersey Devils.

Reeling from the loss of future hall of fame goalie, Martin Brodeur, the Devils are indeed seeing red.

They have won one game since Brodeur went down with a torn tricep muscle in a shoot-out, and backup goalie Kevin Weekes was pulled from Wednesday night’s game against the Rangers after allowing four second period goals.

Yikes!  I’d be panicking if I was a Jersey junkie.

The Devils continue to struggle on the penalty-killing unit, allowing opponents to score an average of 24 percent on power play opportunities.

And in turn, the team has found the net for only seven total goals scored.

Without an aggressive offensive attack to counter the missing Brodeur, the Devils have little chance of securing a playoff spot.

Coach Brett Sutter isn’t hanging his head in defeat. “We aren’t going to use injuries to excuse bad play.” 

Can the Devils perform a miracle or will the Caps' stars shine on to another easy win?

Notes

G Jose Theodore will start for the Capitals and Brent Johnson will be the backup after tweaking his hip against Carolina.

D Sergei Federov also is out with an undisclosed injury but is officially listed as day to day.

The Devils have managed a total of 15 goals all season. 

F Zach Parise has been their lone offensive weapon notching points in five straight games.