Game Preview: Blue Jackets, Capitals Meet Again As Kirill Marchenko Follows Up On First Career Hat Trick

WASHINGTON CAPITALS

22-14-6 (50 points; .595%) ROSTER / SCHEDULE

5:00 P.M. – SUNDAY, JANUARY 8 CAPITAL ONE ARENA WASHINGTON, DC

TELEVISION: Bally Sports Ohio ESPN+ (Out Of Market)

Just when you think you know the Blue Jackets, they deliver one of the biggest surprises of the season.

Columbus defeated the division-leading Carolina Hurricanes 4-3 in an afternoon affair at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, led by Kirill Marchenko's first NHL hat trick.

The final spread on a Blue Jackets victory was at -365, the second-longest odds of the season for Columbus at Caesar's Sportsbook. 

The odds are again stacked against them (-320) Sunday when they face the Washington Capitals for the second time in three games. The two teams met Thursday in Columbus, with Washington scoring four unanswered goals en route to a 6-2 Caps win. 

Here's what to know when the Blue Jackets and Capitals meet for the second time in four nights:

TALKING POINTS: CAPS

• Following their win over the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Thursday, the Caps returned home for a Friday night matchup against the Nashville Predators. The Preds scored in the final minutes of regulation to secure a 3-2 victory.
   
• One giant difference between those two games and Sunday's contest? Both Nicklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson will be in the lineup for the Capitals, each making their season debut.
   
• Alex Ovechkin's 29th goal of the season came against Columbus in the Thursday matchup, a power play tally in the third period. It was his 7th goal in a four-game stretch, each with at least one goal. But that streak came to an end when Ovechkin was held off the scoreboard against the Predators. It was just the third time in the last 15 games that the future Hall-of-Famer was held without a point. Still, he has nearly three times as many goals as anyone else on the club. Conor Sheary is second, with 11. 

CBJ STORYLINES

• KIRILL'S FOLLOW-UP
  No one on the Blue Jackets has scored more in the last month than the potential Rookie of the Month for January. Marchenko scored his 6th, 7th, and 8th goals of the season in the hat trick victory. The eight goals in 15 games from the 22-year-old would extrapolate to 44 goals over 82 games. It's also worth noting that Marchenko's plus/minus of +4 not only leads the team, but makes him the only player on the active roster above zero in the category.
   
• IT WAS A WIN, BUT...
  For those who enjoy the deep dives into the world of analytics, it maybe shouldn't have. Columbus was outshot 42-18 and MoneyPuck's expected goals tally ended at 4.1 to 1.5 in favor of Carolina. In both 5v5 play and the entire 65 minutes of hockey played, every single Hurricanes skater had a Corsi percentage (puck possession) than every single Blue Jackets skater. (I have never seen that in which the team that was out-possessed so thoroughly won the game.) It was the kind of performance that, aside from Marchenko, is not going to be good enough to win most nights. 
   
• BACK-TO-BACK WINS ON BACK-TO-BACK DAYS?
  The Blue Jackets have a chance to do something they haven't done in a long, long time Sunday: win consecutive games on consecutive days. This is Columbus' 7th back-to-back of the season. Add that to the 0-for-14 from last season and 0-of-7 to end the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, and Columbus has gone 27 straight back-to-back gamedays without a pair of wins. In fact, not since late in January of 2021 have the Blue Jackets had four points in two days. Sunday is a chance (one of two) to break the schneid before it hits its two-year anniversary January 29th.
   

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Updated: 7:05 a.m. // Subject to Change