Scouting the Capitals

Because tomorrow’s game has such an early start — 9:30 a.m. for those of you on the West Coast — we’ll do the pregame stuff tonight. The Washington Capitals got some good news this week when they learned that Mike Green should be able to return to play against the Kings. Green was hit in the head by a shot on Sunday and missed one game but is expected to be able to play. Green is Washington’s top-scoring defenseman, with 24 points in 47 games. The Capitals have also tweaked their lines and put their big guns together. The first line is expected to be Alexander Ovechkin (20 goals), Nicklas Backstrom (14 goals) and Alexander Semin (18 goals). For the latest Kings news and notes, please check out my LAKings.com notebook, followed by a link to the Washington Post’s Capitals blog, followed by the expected lineups for both teams…

Kings notebook (Feb. 11)

Capitals Insider blog (Washington Post)

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CAPITALS LINEUP
Alexander Ovechkin-Nicklas Backstrom-Alexander Semin
Jason Chimera-Mathieu Perrault-Brooks Laich
Matt Hendricks-Marcus Johansson-Mike Knuble
Boyd Gordon-David Steckel-Matt Bradley

Karl Alzner-John Carlson
Jeff Schultz-Mike Green
John Erskine-Scott Hannan

Semyon Varlamov

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KINGS LINEUP
Handzus-Kopitar-Simmonds
Clifford-Loktionov-Brown
Smyth-Stoll-Williams
Ponikarovsky-Lewis-Westgarth

Mitchell-Doughty
Johnson-Scuderi
Martinez-Greene

Bernier