Coyotes at Capitals preview

COYOTES (7-7-1) at CAPITALS (7-5-3)
5 p.m. ET; NBCSWA, FS-A, NHL.TV

Arizona plays the second of a back to back after a 4-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.
John Carlson is a game-time decision for Washington after missing a 2-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday because of a lower-body injury. Carlson is fourth in scoring among defensemen with 18 points (five goals, 13 assists) in 14 games.
The Capitals are 2-2-1 in their past five games.

Players to watch

Coyotes forward Clayton Keller has points in eight of his past 10 games (five goals, five assists).
Capitals forward Nicklas Backstrom has a four-game point streak (one goal, four assists).

They said it

"Everyone's got a nasty schedule at some point. I thought we did a real good job of taking advantage of a schedule that was a little bit lighter. Now the heavy stuff comes and it's kind of nice when you have a game where maybe you didn't think you were as sharp as you could be to be able to get a kick right back at it tomorrow night." -- Coyotes center Derek Stepan
"We don't want to put [Carlson] in a situation where he can make anything worse, so he's got to be real close to 100 percent if he's going to be back in for us, and it was a positive for us today that he was skating." -- Capitals coach Todd Reirden

Coyotes projected lineup

Lawson Crouse -- Alex Galchenyuk -- Clayton Keller
Nick Cousins -- Derek Stepan -- Christian Fischer
Michael Grabner -- Brad Richardson -- Vinnie Hinostroza
Josh Archibald -- Dylan Strome -- Brendan Perlini
Oliver Ekman-Larsson -- Jason Demers
Niklas Hjalmarsson -- Ilya Lyubushkin
Kevin Connauton -- Jordan Oesterle
Darcy Kuemper
Hunter Miska
Scratched:Dakota Mermis, Richard Panik
Injured:Jakob Chychrun (lower body), Christian Dvorak (upper body), Antti Raanta (lower body), Alex Goligoski (lower body)

Capitals projected lineup

Alex Ovechkin -- Nicklas Backstrom -- T.J. Oshie
Chandler Stephenson -- Evgeny Kuznetsov -- Jakub Vrana
Dmitrij Jaskin -- Lars Eller -- Brett Connolly
Andre Burakovsky -- Travis Boyd -- Devante Smith-Pelly
Michal Kempny -- Matt Niskanen
Dmitry Orlov -- John Carlson
Christian Djoos -- Madison Bowey
Braden Holtby
Pheonix Copley
Scratched:Jonas Siegenthaler, Aaron Ness, Nic Dowd
Injured:Brooks Orpik (lower body)

Status report

Kuznetsov was excused from practice Saturday to take care of a family matter, but Reirden expects him to play Sunday.

Stat pack

Arizona leads the NHL with nine shorthanded goals. … The Capitals have allowed two goals or fewer in three straight games. … Ovechkin has nine points (six goals, three assists) in his past eight games and is one power-play goal from tying Mario Lemieux (236) for seventh place on the NHL all-time list. … Holtby has stopped 75 of 78 shots his past two games (.962 save percentage). … The Coyotes' 2.53 goals-against average is the third-lowest in the NHL. The Nashville Predators (2.19) are first and the Boston Bruins (2.50) are second.