{"id":540598,"date":"2026-04-04T17:12:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T17:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540598\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T17:12:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T17:12:30","slug":"lines-notes-how-to-watch-76","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540598\/","title":{"rendered":"Lines, Notes, & How to Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Capitals (38-29-9) begin a weekend set of back-to-backs on Saturday night. Their first game will be a home matchup with the Buffalo Sabres (46-22-8) at Capital One Arena.<\/p>\n

The puck drops at 7:00 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

The Capitals play their penultimate home game of the 2025-26 season as well as their penultimate set of back-to-backs. They close out their three-game season series with the Sabres, with both games having been split in Buffalo.<\/p>\n

The Capitals enter Saturday needing some standings points with less than two weeks left in the regular season. Unfortunately, Washington\u2019s playoff chances took a hit when they fell 7-3 to New Jersey on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Devils went up 2-0 early on before the Capitals tied it up at 2-2 in the first period. Then, Jack Hughes (two goals, three assists) and Jesper Bratt (one goal, four assists) both powered New Jersey with five points each.<\/p>\n

The Capitals did have positives in the game, including Cole Hutson scoring his second goal in eight games. The 19-year-old now has six points (two goals, four assists), joining Timo Blomqvist as the second Washington defenseman to record six points in his first 10 games.<\/p>\n

Pierre-Luc Dubois scored on the man advantage to extend the Capitals\u2019 streak to four straight games with at least one power-play goal. It\u2019s their second-longest streak of the season since five straight from Oct. 14-24.<\/p>\n

Finally, Tom Wilson scored his 28th goal of the season in the third period. The alternate captain now moves within two tallies of a second consecutive season with 30 or more goals.<\/p>\n

The last time the Capitals and Sabres faced off, Washington ended Buffalo\u2019s eight-game winning streak on their home ice on March 12. Nevertheless, the Sabres have been the hottest team in the NHL since the Olympic break (14-3-2).<\/p>\n

Expected Capitals Lines<\/p>\n

Forwards<\/p>\n

Alex Ovechkin \u2013 Dylan Strome \u2013 Connor McMichael<\/p>\n

Hendrix Lapierre \u2013 Pierre-Luc Dubois \u2013 Tom Wilson<\/p>\n

Anthony Beauvillier \u2013 Justin Sourdif \u2013 Ryan Leonard<\/p>\n

Brandon Duhaime \u2013 David Kampf \u2013 Ivan Miroshnichenko<\/p>\n

Defensemen<\/p>\n

Martin Fehervary \u2013 Rasmus Sandin<\/p>\n

Jakob Chychrun \u2013 Trevor van Riemsdyk<\/p>\n

Cole Hutson \u2013 Matt Roy<\/p>\n

Goalies<\/p>\n

Logan Thompson <\/p>\n

Charlie Lindgren<\/p>\n

Expected Sabres Lines<\/p>\n

Forwards<\/p>\n

Peyton Krebs \u2013 Tage Thompson \u2013 Josh Doan<\/p>\n

Jason Zucker \u2013 Josh Norris \u2013 Alex Tuch<\/p>\n

Zach Benson \u2013 Ryan McLeod \u2013 Jack Quinn <\/p>\n

Jordan Greenway \u2013 Tyson Kozak \u2013 Beck Malenstyn<\/p>\n

Defensemen<\/p>\n

Rasmus Dahlin \u2013 Matthias Samuelsson<\/p>\n

Bowen Byram \u2013 Owen Power <\/p>\n

Logan Stanley \u2013 Zach Metsa<\/p>\n

Goalies<\/p>\n

Alex Lyon<\/p>\n

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/p>\n

How to Watch<\/p>\n

TV: Monumental Sports Network<\/p>\n

Radio: 106.7 The Fan\/Caps Radio Network<\/p>\n

\t\t\"avatar\"<\/p>\n

\t\tHarry Lichtman is an award-winning journalist who covers the Washington Capitals for Sportsnaut. He also contributes to the sites … More about Harry Lichtman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals (38-29-9) begin a weekend set of back-to-backs on Saturday night. Their first game will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5114],"tags":[191,5,4,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-540598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-capitals","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-washington","12":"tag-washington-capitals","13":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116347559163191600","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}