Sabres Capitals Preview

Hey look who is in town, its Alexander the Great the rest of his Capital buddies. I hope they had fun watching the game and watching ice form last night, as the Sabres beat the Flyers and lost Hank Tallinder. So the Caps are rested coming off their 10-2 drubbing of the Boston Bruins, and the Sabres are tired, and going to have Paetsch, Sekera and Kalinin as half their defensive crew. Or as he will be now known as Dmitri "Play with some (expletive) Passion" Kalinin. Well I'm sure he'll be one angry camper tonight and fresh. I say put Kalinin out there when Ovechkin is out there and he'll put him through the glass. The game is critical for both teams. The Caps are now solid in net with Huet, but you think we'll he couldn't beat out a rookie in front of what is a better defense, now he has a less then stellar defense, will he be better? Who knows. The Caps are 3-1-1 in their last 5 games, so they are playing well.

So who besides #8 can do damage?

Well rookie sensation Nick Backstrom is coming on strong, second in points with 56, but only 10 goals. He is setting up OV, so well he doesn't need to score. The Caps also have two other young future superstars in Alex Semin and Mike Green. Semin is 2nd in goals with 20, only 32 behind Ovechkin. Thats amazing OV has a 32 goal cushion on his own team. Plus a couple vets round out the roster with Federov and Kozlov. Michael Nylander is out along with Chris Clark and Brian Pothier. Huet I will assume be in net tonight, always gives the Sabres challanges, but the Caps defense isn't what I call great, so he'll see more quality shots, from a Sabre team that needs to win.

Outlook

Mmm, tough call on this one, Kalinin and Macarthur are back in, Peters is in, because of Brashear. But I liked what I saw in the 3rd last night. The game could have went either way, but the Sabres got out early and put it away. I think that will translate into tonight. Lindy finally has some health on his side, Tallinder and Hecht withstanding, so he can threaten with playing time again. I say Clarke has a really good game, a 2 goal game. Max is coming back to form and Roy and Pominville are always steady. But will that result in a win with a depleted backend? I don't know. I won't be seeing this one, so if its a slaughter I'll be glad I missed it.