The Washington Capitals face the Toronto Maple Leafs with both teams looking to take big steps forward in the Eastern Conference. The Capitals reached the playoffs last season as a wild card team but were eliminated in the First Round while the Maple Leafs had the second-best record in the Atlantic Division but were also eliminated in the First Round. Both teams are looking to start the season strong as well as bounce back from opening night losses and the upcoming game should be a great one as a result.
The Capitals have been led by their offense in recent years but on the opening night of the season, the unit struggled, scoring only two goals in the loss. While Conor Sheary, Anthony Mantha, and Nic Dowd added two goals and an assist to the later lines, the rest of the offense struggled. The hope is that Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov can step up as they combined for 74 goals and 94 assists last season to lead the top line but were blanked on opening night.
Along with the offense hoping to improve the defense is looking to rebound after allowing five goals on the opening night. While Dmitry Orlov and Nick Jensen led the top pairing, the rest of the defense struggled and allowed the opposition to find plenty of open shots on the net. While Darcy Kuemper struggled in the net the team will turn to Charlie Lindgren as their starting goaltender in the upcoming game and he looks to build off a y ear where he had a .958 save percentage and a 1.22 goals-against average but only on 118 shots as he played the role as a backup last year.