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LGD: Clinch?

Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

By Adam Laskaris

Apr 4, 2017, 14:03 EDT

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Are you ready? Nervous? Excited? Scared? Anxious? Tense? On the edge of your seat?

For the first time in four years, the Toronto Maple Leafs could clinch a playoff spot by around 10:30 tonight. If that doesn’t get you excited, nothing will.

For that to happen, the Leafs need two things to go right:

A win over Washington tonight
A Tampa Bay loss against Boston

Washington, of course, has already clinched a playoff spot, but is looking to really test their sense of merit with the chance to clinch the Presidents’ Trophy as early as this Thursday. So while the game doesn’t mean quite as much for the Capitals, they’ll still be fighting in tough to earn some regular season silverware.

Coming off a great start that saw them leading 3-0 before settling for a 4-2 win last night over Buffalo, the Leafs will look to continue their recent hot streak at home.

If the aforementioned scenario doesn’t happen, in their final four games, the Leafs need any combination of 2 Tampa Bay losses and Leafs victories to clinch a playoff spot.

The Leafs

LW	C	RW
Zach Hyman	Auston Matthews	William Nylander
Leo Komarov	Nazem Kadri	Connor Brown
James van Riemsdyk	Tyler Bozak	Mitchell Marner
Matt Martin	Brian Boyle	Kasperi Kapanen

Defensive Pairings
Morgan Rielly	Connor Carrick
Jake Gardiner	Nikita Zaitsev
Matt Hunwick	Roman Polak

Auston Matthews can hit 40 goals tonight, so that’s fun. Please make sure to tell everyone on Twitter about this fact when it happens.

Besides that, it’s for the most part the same lineup we’ve seen for much of the season. These kids deserve a playoff spot, let’s see them go get it.

The Capitals

LW	C	RW
Alex Ovechkin	Nicklas Backstrom	T.J. Oshie
Marcus Johansson	Evgeny Kuznetsov	Justin Williams
Brett Connolly	Lars Eller	Andre Burakovsky
Daniel Winnik	Jay Beagle	Tom Wilson

Defensive Pairings
Karl Alzner	John Carlson
Dmitri Orlov	Matt Niskanen
Brooks Orpik	Kevin Shattenkirk

Most teams don’t have Kevin Shattenkirk on their third pairing. The Capitals aren’t most teams.

Daniel Winnik will get a goal and an assist tonight.

Isn’t it funny how Matt Niskanen and Brooks Orpik BOTH used to play for the Penguins?

Also, who do you think Brooks Laich is cheering for tonight? Like actually.

Starting in net

Curtis McElhinney (no surprise) will face off against Philipp Grubauer. McElhinney is 5-5 this year with a .919 save percentage, while Grubauer is 11-6-2 with a .924 save percentage.