St.Louis Blues @ Washington Capitals
Thursday, Dec 18,2008 7:00 PM EST

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Washington Capitals (19-10-3, 41pts)
1st Southeast, 3rd Eastern Conference

The Washington Capitals are going in this game with an excellent 12-1-1 home record and 4 game winning streak.

The team is playing good defense with excellent penalty kill, while the attack is working good with 3.2 GFA in last 5 games.

Still there are big injury troubles for Capitals:
• RW Eric Fehr (shoulder injury) is day to day
• D Brian Pothier remains out indefinitely with a concussion.
• D Jeff Schultz (broken finger) is out about two more weeks.
• RW Chris Clark (stress fracture of forearm) is out at least one more week.
• D John Erskine (concussion) is day to day.
• G Jose Theodore (hip flexor) is day to day
• D Tyler Sloan (leg) is day to day
• C Sergei Fedorov (ankle) is day to day.

Defence is taking biggest presure but good thing is that Mike Green is back cause he’s important not just in defence but also in power play.

St Louis Blues (12-15-3, 27pts)
5th Central, 15th Western Conference

St. Louis Blues struggle without first choice goaltender Manny Legace, their two top forwards Andy McDonald and Paul Kariya and two important defenseman Eric Brewer and Jay McKee.

St Louis are on 4 game losing streak with 21 goals.

More AHL players will play in Blues defence (probably Tyson Strachan and Jonas Junland) while (D) Carlo Colaiacovo is playing despite injury.

Just can’t see how these young players will manage to play successfully against Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin ..

The Blues GK Chris Mason is in terrible form but coach Andy Murray probably won’t risk with rookie Ben Bishop.

Head to Head

This two teams rarely meet. The last game between these two teams was played on Oct 27, 2007 and St.Louis won 4-3.

THE VERDICT

Just can’t see anything else than Washington Capitals win.

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take the Washington Capitals to win in regulation.