JUNKIES: 'Big Halloween Guy' Nic Dowd ready for another big Caps tilt against Montreal

The Capitals have a Halloween night tilt with the Canadiens at Capital One Arena, so Nic Dowd and hid wife won’t be dressed up as Meredith Grey and Derek Shepard from Grey’s Anatomy as they were the other night…

“I’m a big Halloween guy because I think for me it kick starts the rest of the holidays, you know?” Dowd told the Junkies Thursday in his weekly visit. “Halloween’s exciting to get ready for, because the weather's changing, so you put on a nice little sweater and it’s fun for the kiddos. Then that kind of kind of pushes right into Thanksgiving, and then the big man, Santa Claus, comes around a little bit later.”

‘No comment’ on being upset there’s a game tonight so he can’t celebrate, but it would be (Mc)dreamy if the Caps got a win to go to 7-2 on the season after beating a hot Rangers team earlier this week.

“I think in that game, that was one of our best efforts of the season. I know we have a small sample size, but they’re a really good team,” Dowd said. “I made a couple of mistakes on the penalty kill and the puck kind of found its way in the back of the net, but I thought five-on-five, we limited their shots and opportunities, and Thompson shut the door when we needed him to.
Offensively, I thought we did a great job against one of the best goalies in the league; you have to create second opportunities and screen pucks and that's what we were able to do.”

And the tone was set by Dylan McIlrath, who dropped the gloves with Matt Rempe early on and got the crowd into it.

“Yeah, I definitely think it makes guys play with a little bit more confidence; you know the old saying, you stand a little bit taller out there when Big Mac's on the ice,” Dowd said. “A lot of people probably don't realize it, but Mac’s been one of the toughest guys in pro hockey for the last 10 years, maybe even more. He's definitely one of the toughest guys in the NHL, right now, not scared of anybody and he knows what he's doing. Not only is he super tough and heavy and strong and long, but he knows what he's doing too. So yeah, I was so pumped up for that fight; we were all banging the boards and yelling at him, and he's yelling and stuff, and when he sat down in the box, I think I stood back up and started banging the boards for an encore. I was so pumped.”

Pumped for tonight, too, but first, Dowd’s gonna get his work in, go to his son’s Halloween parade, then take a nap and prep for the latest big game of 82 of them.

“I know that any team could beat any other on any given night, so I don't think we're looking at the standings at all; again, small sample size early in the year, so we’re gonna dig into them and see what's going on, do our pregame skate and then we'll move forward from there,” Dowd said. “They have some really high-quality players, and the goalies are playing pretty well, so we're gonna have to be ready for a big game tonight.”