Regular preview for the series here.

In the build-up to tonight’s game against the Canadiens much of the talk around the Capitals has centered around the team is unhappy with what they perceived as Montreal attempting to run up the score against them Tuesday night, perhaps most simply summarized by Viktor Kozlov’s statement, “They tried to embarrass us.”

This attitude has some Capitals fans watering at the mouth with visions of a fight-filled game tonight at Verizon Center and while that might be gratifying to some degree in itself, what the Capitals need to focus on is beating the Habs on the scoreboard, not in the fight department. The Capitals need to come away from this game with two points more than anything else and while I’d expect some hard hits and maybe a fight or two I think Bruce Boudreau is a good enough coach that he’ll keep the team focused on the task at hand.

One last note - apparently at some point there was concern that Alexei Kovalev’s thumb was broken, but he will play tonight.

Around the (Inter)net

James Mirtle has one of the best NHL blogs in the business (perhaps due to the fact that he actually is in the business, as a sports desk staffer for the Globe and Mail) and it’s especially good right now as he takes a look at how the game has changed in a series of articles. Part one is about how the distribution of penalty calls differs from the pre-lockout days and part two is about the NHL’s youth movement.

Elsewhere….Alex Ovechkin’s new contract is worth 124 million dollars or 8.857 million haircuts…JP takes a look at whether Olie Kolzig just needs to see more shots…Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk, who trails Ovechkin 39 to 38 in the NHL goal-scoring race, was injured in last night’s against the Penguins…Someone at the North Bay Nugget (?) is saying what I’ve been saying all along - let the All-Star Game be what it is…