Caps & Canes Meet Again in the Playoffs

For the fifth time in five seasons, the Washington Capitals are headed to the playoffs where they'll face division rivals, the Carolina Hurricanes for a second straight season. This time around it's the Capitals who will have home ice advantage, clinching first place in the division in the final week of the season.

This season the Capitals finished with their highest win total of 52, they also had their best goal differential of 55. One of the big reasons for these totals this season was the play of young #1 goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. The team also saw Anze Kopitar score 107 points while suiting up for all 82 games. Both players will be leaned on heavily this post-season.

Hurricanes vs Capitals:

In the regular season, the series is a dead even heat. Both teams managed two wins apiece. Here is how it played out:

Caps 2 @ Canes 4

Caps 2 @ Canes 1

Canes 4 @ Caps 3

Canes 1 @ Caps 4

This series should be a close one. Both teams are also rivals, so we can expect a chippy affair from them.

Projected Line-up for game 1:

Anders Lee - Anze Kopitar - Kyle Okposo

Ondrej Palat - Sean Couturier - Rick Nash

J.T.  Compher - Matt Cullen - Tobias Rieder

Matt Nieto - Tomas Plekanec - Cal Clutterbuck

Jay Bouwmeester - Rasmus Ristolainen

Johnny Boychuk - Aaron Ekblad

Nick Jensen - Andrej Sustr

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Anders Lindback

Also making an appearance after missing the playoffs last season is the Caps AHL affiliate Hershey Bears, they're set to face the Hartford Wolf Pack. The Bears had one of the better farm teams in the first half of the season, but after the pro club made a few moves, they dipped into the depth on the farm team and it hurt the Bears position through the rest of the season.

Hershey Bears vs Hartford Wolf Pack:

The regular season saw these two teams pretty evenly matched, the record against the Wolf Pack is 2-2-2. Here's how the regular seasons games shook out:

Wolf Pack 3 @ Bears 6

Wolf Pack 4 @ Bears 3

Bears 2 @ Wolf Pack 3 (SO)

Bears 5 @ Wolf Pack 3

Bears 2 @ Wolf Pack 7

Wolf Pack 4 @ Bears 3 (OT)

Here is the projected line-up for game 1:

Kevin Roy - Corban Knight - Erik Condra

Jordan Greenway - Justin Kloos - Gabriel Gagne

Emerson Etem - Nicolas Roy - Kole Lind

Michael Bournival - Nathan Noel - Shane Conacher

Victor Mete - Jordan Schmaltz

Ian McCoshen - Mark Alt

Dalton Thrower - Dan Maggio

Spencer Martin

Dustin Tokarski