Caps Host Blues on Monday

Jan. 14 vs. St. Louis Blues at Capital One Arena
Time:7:00 p.m.
TV: NBCSW
Radio: Capitals Radio 24/7, FAN 106.7
St. Louis Blues 19-20-4
Washington Capitals 27-12-5

The Caps close out a quick two-game homestand on Monday night when they face the St. Louis Blues at Capital One Arena. The contest finishes off the season's series between Washington and St. Louis; the Blues downed the Caps 5-2 back on Jan. 3 in the Caps' first game of calendar 2019.
Washington is halfway through its rugged January slate, a stretch in which the Caps will play a dozen games in just 21 nights. The Caps are 3-1-2 at the halfway mark of that span, but they'll play six games in 10 nights the rest of the way, and they'll alter home and road games the rest of the way as well. That means travel will be involved for each of those half dozen contests, and they'll play two sets of back-to-backs in the next 10 nights as well.
Monday night's match against the Blues starts off the first of those back-to-back sets; the Caps depart the District immediately after the game for a Tuesday night date with the Predators in Nashville.

Washington's brief homestand started off with a 2-1 overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night. The Caps fell down 1-0 exactly a minute into the game, and spent the next 58 minutes trying to catch up to Columbus. With just 66 seconds left and goaltender Pheonix Copley pulled for an extra attacker, the Caps did just that, tying the game at 1-1 on Evgeny Kuznetsov's one-timer from above the right circle.
But Washington fell in overtime, succumbing to an Artemi Panarin power-play goal with 1:30 left in the extra session. The Caps have now limited Columbus to exactly one five-on-five goal in three games against the Jackets this season, but they've only a 1-1-1 record in those games, largely because they've not been able to muster much of an attack of their own.
The Caps had the makings of some offensive zone situations on Saturday, but poor puck management frequently undercut their forays into Columbus ice.
"I think we had a plan going in that we were going to keep our guys high in the neutral zone and try and expose their 1-2-2 a little bit," explains Caps center Nic Dowd, "and get behind it. But I think what ended up happening a lot of the time was we had three guys standing at the far blue[line], and our only option was to get the puck in and we had no one to go forecheck.
"If you watched the game, you saw a lot of the time where we didn't spend any extended zone time there because their [defensemen] were allowed to go back uncontested and basically either rim the puck or chip the puck and it was out, so it was one and done. For our forecheck, it wasn't there enough."

Caps goalie Braden Holtby left the game with an eye injury midway through the second period when Columbus winger Cam Atkinson got his stick blade into Holtby's mask, prying the bucket right off of the goaltender's melon. Holtby departed for the night and Copley came on in relief, and speaking of relief, the Caps were relieved to learn that Holtby was fortunate not to suffer any lingering damage. He practiced with his teammates on Sunday at MedStar Iceplex.
"Obviously anything with your eyes is a little scary," says Holtby. "It's fortunate that it wasn't anything too serious, so you just move on."
With Monday's game starting a set of back-to-backs, it's expected that Holtby will start one of these next two games and Copley will get the other.
In the game against the Blues, Caps defenseman Brooks Orpik will become the 330th player in NHL history - and at 38 years and 110 days, the 14th oldest - to reach the 1,000 games played milestone. Orpik debuted with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 10, 2002 and will hit the 1,000 mark midway through his 16th season in the circuit.
Washington started calendar 2019 with a three-game road trip that started in St. Louis against the Blues, and the Caps dropped a 5-2 decision in that contest, likely one of their worst overall games of the season. Although the Blues are near the bottom of the Central Division standings, they have been an underachieving team more than they've been a downright poor team this season.

The Blues rank in the middle-to-lower-third of the NHL pack in most major team categories this season. They're 21st in goals per game (2.81 per game), 22nd in goals against (3.09 per game), 15th in power play prowess (19.5 percent) and 16th in penalty killing (79.6 percent).
After going 7-9-3 under head coach Mike Yeo in the first 19 games of the season, the Blues have improved to 12-11-1 in Craig Berube's two dozen games behind the bench since he took over the coaching reins.
Although the Blues are only five points south of the final playoff berth in the Western Conference standings, they currently rank 13th in the conference and would have to climb over five teams to slide into that spot.
Starting with their home ice win over Washington on Jan. 3, the Blues have won four of their last six games (4-2-0) and they come into Monday's game seeking their first three-game winning streak of the season.
Rookie netmninder Jordan Binnington has earned each of the Blues' last three victories, and the 25-year-old Ontario native is 3-0-0 with an 0.67 GAA and a .974 save pct. in his only three NHL starts.