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Wednesday Night Hockey: Rangers vs. Capitals; Bruins vs. Flames

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Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers will take on Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals, who are fighting to defend their Stanley Cup title, on Wednesday Night Hockey.

NBC’s coverage of the 2018-19 NHL season continues with Wednesday night’s matchup between the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals at 7 p.m. ET. You can watch the game online and on the NBC Sports App by clicking here.

Rangers head coach David Quinn hasn’t been shy about sending his team messages early on this season. He’s already scratched players like Kevin Shattenkirk and Pavel Buchnevich, so he won’t be shy about going head-to-head with any of his players going forward.

As many expected, the Rangers are off to a tough start. They decided to unload a lot of their veterans, so this wasn’t totally unexpected. They’re 2-4-0 coming into tonight’s clash against the defending Stanley Cup Champions. On a positive note, New York is coming off a 3-2 shootout win over the Avalanche on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, they’ll play their second of a back-to-back situation in Washington.

The biggest issue right now, is that they can’t seem to find much offense. The Rangers have found the back of the net 15 times in six games, but they’ve only scored more than two goals in regulation/overtime twice (they scored five goals in a loss to Carolina).

If there’s one thing you’ll have to do against Washington, it’s scoring. Can the Rangers keep up with the Caps’ high-flying offense?

The Capitals are coming off a 4-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on home ice. They’ve managed to score just twice in the last two games, but that just means that their offense is bound to erupt in the near future. One area the Capitals haven’t struggling in, is their power play. Washington has been clicking at 36.8 percent thanks to Evgeny Kuznetsov’s four power play goals.

Kuznetsov has come out of the gate strong this season, as he’s already accumulated nine points in five games. Alex Ovechkin isn’t too far behind. He’s up to four goals and seven points in the same amount of contests. Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie and John Carlson are also running at over a point-per-game clip.

In the late game, we’ll have the matchup between the Boston Bruins and Calgary Flames. You can watch that game online by clicking here.

The Bruins will head into tonight’s game with the second best power play in the NHL, which is clicking at 41.7 percent. Incredible. As you’d imagine, their first line of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak is a big reason for their success on the man-advantage, as the trio has combined for 11 power play points in just five games.

This will be the first of a four-game road trip that will take them through Western Canada (Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver) before they finish off in Ottawa. None of those four teams made the playoffs last season, but they aren’t exactly easy places to play. This is going to be a tough road trip for them.

The Flames will have to be at their best to matchup against the Bruins are their top line. Thankfully for Calgary, it appears as though Sean Monahan will play. He blocked a shot on Saturday, missed Monday’s practice, but managed to return to the ice on Tuesday morning. Monahan is currently tied for third on the team in points with six in five games. His four goals in five games are tied for the team lead.

Calgary’s done a good job of finding the back of the net overall (they have 18 goals in five games), but keeping the puck out has been a different story. They’ve given up at least four goals in three of their five games. That’s a trend that can’t continue if they want to make it back to the playoffs after missing them last season.

Getting quality goaltending from veteran Mike Smith would go a long way in helping them bring their goals against down. Smith, who will start tonight, has a 2-2 record with a 3.57 goals-against-average and a .881 save percentage this season.

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Joey Alfieri is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @joeyalfieri.