NHL Picks: New-look Blackhawks pull out win over first-place Capitals

Welcome to NHL Picks where CBSSports.com hockey writers Chris Peters and Adam Gretz make their predictions for all the day’s games.

Washington Capitals at Chicago Blackhawks, 12:30 p.m. ET, NBC

Sunday’s NHL schedule is packed with some incredibly intriguing matchups among playoff teams or divisional rivals, but it’s hard to top the game that will kick off a robust day of hockey. The defending Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks will be taking on the Washington Capitals, who have been the league's best team so far this season and the betting favorite to win it all.

In the first meeting between the two clubs, the Capitals made quick work of the Blackhawks in a 4-1 win way back in the first week of the 2015-16 regular season in the nation’s capital. Now Chicago will get the Caps on home turf, where they’ve been extremely tough to beat.

There are a lot of other factors that will go into this game, though. First off, Chicago has a brand new look heading into Sunday’s contest. After GM Stan Bowman’s wheeling and dealing over the last three days, the team is expected to have new additions Andrew Ladd, Tomas Fleischmann and Christian Ehrhoff in the lineup. Dale Weise, who also was acquired in a trade this weekend, has some visa issues to take care of before he can suit up for the team.

Even without Weise, that’s a lot of new bodies to get acclimated. It should help that Ladd is already familiar with the organization, having spent parts of three seasons there earlier in his career. It is likely he will play alongside Jonathan Toews and the injured Marian Hossa, when he returns from his time on IR. That should make Chicago’s top line more formidable even while Hossa is away, allowing them to take some of the pressure off of the top scoring unit of Patrick Kane, Artemi Panarin and Artem Anisimov.

The Caps, meanwhile, will be without the services of No. 1 defenseman John Carlson, who will miss about a month after undergoing surgery. That’s a tough guy to lose this time of year, but the Caps have already managed to play well enough without him before. Their depth is unrivaled it seems.

The status of veteran forward Brooks Laich also remains up in the air. He was placed on waivers Saturday. If he clears, and he is expected to, Washington’s plan is to keep him on the NHL roster while retaining the right to send him to the minors over the next 30 days without him having to go through waivers again according to NHL.com. It’s an interesting situation, but a necessary one as the team looks to clear salary cap space.

With all of that business aside, when it comes to the hockey being played, fans should be in for a treat Sunday.

The game will feature the league’s top goal scorer, Alex Ovechkin – who topped 40 goals for the eighth time in his career in his last game. It will also feature the league’s top point scorer, Patrick Kane. The Blackhawks star still has a commanding lead in the Art Ross race as he is 14 points ahead of Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn with 84. Kane is also five goals behind Alex Ovechkin for second in the Rocket Richard Trophy race with 35 on the season. Having two offensive talents like that on the same ice sheet is great enough, but then you throw in an additional cast of characters that includes Evgeny Kuznetsov, Nicklas Backstrom, Toews, Panarin, Duncan Keith and more, you’ve got yourself a star-studded affair with a host of players at the top of their game.

And that doesn’t even mention the goalies. Caps goalie Braden Holtby has spent most of the year as the favorite to win the Vezina. His numbers have dipped a little bit over the last few weeks, but he remains a strong contender. Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford has also managed to keep his name in the Vezina conversation for much of the year, too. Holtby currently owns a .924 save percentage and remains on pace to set the single-season record for wins by a goaltender. He has 39 already, just nine shy of the record currently held by Martin Brodeur. Crawford, meanwhile, has the best save percentage of any team’s primary starting goaltender at .928. Both will have their hands full with the scoring attack of each team Sunday.

This is the perfect kind of game for national TV and a great game for both teams to gauge where they’re at. Both could be considered true Stanley Cup contenders. In fact, some may view this as a Stanley Cup Final preview.

The Caps haven’t really had a bad stretch this season. They’re currently on a 10-2-0 run since losing back-to-back games a month ago. The Blackhawks, meanwhile, have lost five of their last seven games including each of their last two. Offensive inconsistency has been a big part of the problem during this recent stretch.

With so many new faces in the Blackhawks’ lineup it’s always tough to tell if they provide an instant shot in the arm or if it takes time to get everyone on the same page. Having the best team in the league across the ice won’t make things any easier for Chicago, but this is why it helps to have a veteran-laden team with a core that’s been together for a while. The new players don’t have to contribute right away, they just have to hop on for the ride for a few games before getting it going. Look for the Blackhawks to take advantage of some fresh blood in the lineup, while relying on their stars to pull out a close win over the league-leading Caps. Pick: Blackhawks 3, Capitals 2