The Washington Capitals (19-6-4) carry a six-game win streak into Friday’s matchup with the New York Rangers (12-12-4). Puck drop at Capital One Arena will be at 7 p.m. ET. Below, we analyze the Rangers-Capitals odds and lines, with NHL picks and predictions.
The Capitals and Rangers are first and sixth, respectively, in the East Division. They’ve played just twice this season, once in Washington and once in New York, with the Rangers winning both games by scores of 4-2 and 4-1.
The Blue Shirts are coming off a 9-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers Wednesday; they scored all 9 goals in the first two periods. The Capitals have lost just one of their eight games this month. They topped the New York Islanders 3-1 Tuesday in the first game of a six-game homestand.
Rangers at Capitals: Odds, spread and lines
Odds via BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated at 10:29 a.m. ET.
- Money line: Rangers +120 (bet $100 to win $120) | Capitals -145 (bet $145 to win $100)
- Against the spread/ATS: Rangers +1.5 (-225) | Capitals -1.5 (+180)
- Over/Under: 6.5 (O: +100 | U: -120)
Rangers at Capitals: Projected starting goalies
Alexandar Georgiev (5-4-2, .897 SV%, 3.01 GAA) vs. Ilya Samsonov (6-0-1, .907 SV%, 2.54 GAA)
Georgiev stopped all 26 shots he faced in Wednesday’s blanking of the Flyers for his second shutout of the season. His reward is a second straight start, this time against the first-place Caps. He faced them once last season and allowed 5 goals on 34 shots but earned the win.
Samsonov has regained the No. 1 job from Vitek Vanecek since returning from the COVID-19 list. He has won four straight starts and made 21 saves on 22 shots in Tuesday’s victory.
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Rangers at Capitals: Odds, lines, predictions and picks
Prediction
Capitals 4, Rangers 2
Money line (ML)
The CAPITALS (-145) have had an extra day of rest coming into this Friday-Saturday back-to-back with the Rangers and can be backed to win straight up. New York is in a letdown spot following Wednesday’s thrashing of the Flyers.
Both teams are in the bottom half of the league and sub-50% in both Corsi For and scoring chance percentage in 5-on-5 play. The special teams advantage swings to Washington’s sixth-ranked power play and 12th-ranked penalty kill.
We’ll also give the goaltending edge to Samsonov, as he has fully returned to his elite 2019-20 form. Georgiev had given up 10 goals over three games before blanking the Flyers.
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Against the spread (ATS)
Back the CAPITALS -1.5 (+180) to win by 2 or more goals against a Rangers team likely to be feeling too good about themselves.
Four of Washington’s last six games were won by 2 or more goals. New York lost by multiple goals three times in its last five games.
Over/Under (O/U)
Go to the alternate game lines and back the OVER 5.5 (-155) instead of betting the 6.5 total. Washington had played to a total of at least 6 goals in five of six games before Tuesday’s contest against the Islanders.
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