Caps set to hit the ice with 7 defensemen against Canadiens

The Washington Capitals are hosting the Montreal Canadiens tonight in the first a two back-to-back games in less than 24h. The Caps will be looking for a win and a point in a 14th consecutive game before heading to Boston tomorrow to face the Bruins.

Washington is coming off a 2-1 defeat to the Flyers in Philly in the shootout. They will be looking to bounce back and earn the full 2 points tonight.

Nic Dowd injured his finger in Wednesday's game against the Flyers and will be sidelined tonight. Carl Hagelin will also miss the game as he is day-to-day with an upper body injury. The Capitals had no one else in their lineup to replace them and surprisingly enough, they chose to recall defenceman Tyler Lewington from the Hershey Bears.

This means that the Capitals will play with 7 defencemen and 11 forwards against the Canadiens. It will be interesting to see whether a d-man will step up and play as a forward on the 4th line, or whether coach Reirden will opt for rotating his offensive lines and defensive pairs.

Ilya Samsonov gets the start tonight as Holtby gets a rest ahead of tomorrow's game in Boston.

Here is how the Caps' lineup should look tonight according to NHL.com correspondent Harvey Valentine:

Forwards:

Alex Ovechkin - Nicklas Backstrom - T.J. Oshie

Jakub Vrana - Evgeny Kuznetsov - Tom Wilson

Chandler Stephenson - Lars Eller - Garnet Hathaway

Brendan Leipsic - Travis Boyd

Defensemen:

Michal Kempny - John Carlson

Dmitry Orlov - Radko Gudas

Jonas Siegenthaler - Nick Jensen

Tyler Lewington

Goaltenders:

Ilya Samsonov

Braden Holtby

The Habs are coming off a 3-2 victory in shootout against the Blue Jackets on Tuesday and are currently on a pretty good streak. Look for them to come out hungry this evening in what should be a great game of hockey.