The Washington Capitals are hanging onto the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference as the NHL regular season enters its final week. A road win over Tampa Bay would help the Capitals keep their playoff ticket.
The Lightning's postseason hopes were extinguished a while back, but they may relish the opportunity to sully the hopes of their division rivals. Troy Brouwer noted as much in a Monday Washington Times article.
They're not going to just play an easy game because they're out of the playoffs. Teams like to play the spoiler role and it's going to be a tough game for us.
Washington has just two games left after this one, a Thursday home game with the Florida Panthers and a season finale in New York against the Rangers.
Monday night's game will be broadcast nationally on NBC Sports Network as well as Comcast SportsNet. The puck drops at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
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