Caps Face Flyers at High Noon on Sunday

February 7 vs. Philadelphia Flyers at Capital One Arena
Time: Noon
TV:NBC
Radio:Capitals Radio 24/7, 106.7 FAN
Philadelphia Flyers 7-3-2
Washington Capitals 6-2-3

After a quick one-game jaunt to New York, the Caps are back home to host the Philadelphia Flyers in a two-game set at Capital One Arena. The first of those two contests against the Flyers is Washington's traditional Super Bowl Sunday matinee, a high noon tilt that will be televised nationally.
Sunday's opener between the two longtime geographic and divisional rivals pits a pair of teams that are generally seen as being among the elite in the league and in the East Division; a single point separates the third-place Caps and the second-place Flyers in the division standings. But both come into the contest with two-game losing streaks they're bent on stopping.
One of Washington's two consecutive losses came at the hands of the Boston Bruins, and both of Philadelphia's two most recent setbacks - one of them in overtime - came at the hands of the Bruins, who rallied from deficits to win each of those games.
The Caps' most recent loss was a 4-2 setback to the Rangers in New York on Thursday night, the first game this season in which Washington failed to own a lead at any point. The Caps fell behind in the second minute of the game and never caught up, trailing for more time on the clock in that one contest (58:19) than they had in the entire previous 10 games combined (49:52).
"I think in the [Feb. 1] Boston game, we played a solid two periods, it's just that the third one wasn't great," said Caps winger Richard Panik after the loss in New York. "I think that momentum just shifted to this game. I guess we weren't ready from the first minute, and then it's hard to get back into the game. The Rangers played a solid game, we were chasing them, and it wasn't our night."
Still beset by injuries and absences in their lineup due to COVID protocols, the Caps took Friday off and then conducted a Saturday afternoon practice in preparation for Sunday's matinee match against the Flyers.

Caps center Lars Eller practiced with the team for the first time in more than a week on Saturday, but he is still day-to-day with an upper body injury according to Caps coach Peter Laviolette. Forwards Jakub Vrana and T.J. Oshie were both absent from Saturday's practice session for "maintenance days", and it's anyone's guess as to how the Caps' lineup will look on Sunday. They've been in "next man up" mode for the better part of the season to date, but lately it's starting to trend toward "hope you have enough men up" territory, especially with Vrana turning up on the "unavailable due to COVID protocols" list on Saturday evening.
Washington deployed a rarely used - in these parts, anyway - seven defensemen/11 forwards lineup for Thursday's game, a necessity because of a combination of injury and salary cap factors. The Caps have had a new injury or illness situation to deal with for virtually every game over the last two-plus weeks, and they've rarely been able to use the same lineup from one game to the next. That seems like the case for Sunday's contest as well.
Both Washington and Philadelphia will be looking to nip the shortest possible losing streaks before they fester into something longer and lingering.
"You don't want to lose two in a row," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "You hate the way you lost to Boston, and the way that that went down and so you want to right the wrong [in New York]. And we weren't able to do that.
"We talked about everything [Saturday], and we talked about the good things we did. We showed the things that we need to get better at, and we certainly talked about bouncing back and making sure we're ready to get back on track. I think our guys are excited to get going and play the game [Sunday]. But we had that conversation. You want to put a halt to things, and you want to send it in a different direction."
"I feel like these last two games have been hard but good for us against Boston. We need to take the good stuff with us, and the bad stuff leave it behind, so it's a work in progress. It's going to be a short season, but still we need to be calm and do our thing and work together as a group and we'll be fine."

Philadelphia faced Boston in a pair of home games, on Wednesday and Friday. In the opener, the Flyers fell behind on a David Pastrnak goal a dozen seconds into the game, but rallied to take a 3-1 lead by the middle of the third period. That's when Pastrnak struck twice more - both on the power play and the second one in the final ticks of regulation - to fill out the hat trick and force overtime. Patrice Bergeron won it for the B's with yet another power-play goal in the first minute of the extra session. The Flyers took three minor penalties in the back half of the third to aid in their own demise.
Two nights later, the rematch was scoreless going into the third. James van Riemsdyk's power-play goal in the first minute of the third gave the Flyers the lead, but Boston scored twice in a span of 27 seconds later in the frame, winning 2-1.
"If I look at our overall game [Friday] night against the competition that we were up against," says Flyers coach Alain Vigneault, "other than the result, I'm pleased with the way we played. Our power play - at a critical time - was able to get us a goal and a lead, but we weren't able to hang onto it, unfortunately.
"I knew that we were in a tough division and that all games were going to be hard-fought, and that's been the case since the beginning. We've assessed the last game, we've addressed it with our team, and we're moving on. We're getting ready for Washington [Sunday] at noon, which should be another great hockey game against a real strong opponent."