Pre-Game: Capitals vs Sabres

The Capitals will look to continue their miraculous winning ways tonight against a Buffalo team that dismantled Washington 5-0 in their first and only meeting.

Lots of thing have changed since the teams met on the 1st of November:

• The United States has a new President.
• Thomas Vanek and Alex Semin were statistical twins (to this date, my favorite blog post since I started the site back in October).
• Jose Theodore was the clear cut number one goalie for Washington.
• At least eight players from the Capitals who played in the first game will not play tonight.
• Andrew Gordon, Bryan Helmer, Alexandre Giroux, and Varlamov have all been recalled for tonight's game.
  

Vanek has now gone onto to rank second in the league in scoring with 24 goals while Semin has gone onto skate in only 21 games (14 tallies).

Theodore has successfully lost all trust from everyone in Washington...especially Bruce Boudreau. Simeon Varlamov is waiting (and ready) for his chance to shine as Brent Johnson is still injured (what's new?).

• Buffalo's Derek Roy has scored more goals (eight in 15 games) against the Capitals than any other non-divisional team. His nine game point streak came to an end in Buffalo's overtime loss to Pittsburgh before the holiday 'break'. He has seven goals in his past nine games against the Caps.
  
• Theo redemmed himself in Washington's win versus the Rangers. After giving up three goals in the first handful of shots by the NYR, JT60 made some spectacular saves to earn the victory. Jose has not had a winning month of December since 2004 with the Canadiens.
• Ryan Miller, on the other hand, hasn't had a losing December since taking the 1-0 overtime loss against the New York Islanders on the last day of 2002 as a rookie.