Today's early matchup between the Washington Capitals and the Buffalo Sabres at the Verizon Center will involve a meeting between two teams that have seen their fair share of peaks and valleys over the past few weeks.


Clearly, the woes of the Buffalo Sabres have been a popular topic of discussion so far right from the start , but they have found themselves established in a particularly defensive system more and more as the season goes on. With Ted Nolan taking over the coaching duties recently, the team has stuck to their strong defensive game. Buffalo will also be receiving back two of their best forwards today, Cody Hodgson and Ville Leino. Although this may give the team a motivational spark on offense, this team has made it clear that they are built on defense and will be even more so realizing the notorious offensive potential of their opponent.


The Sabres hosted the Capitals hardly two weeks ago, and were able to withhold a 2-1 shootout win despite facing 50 shots. While the Sabres may have a horrendous road record this season, they operate on the same fundamentals away from Upstate New York. Plain and simple, they try to force high powered offenses into rushed easy shots for Ryan Miller to scoop up. Though today's afternoon game may not be as drastic in terms of the shot differential, Buffalo will still try to work Washington into quick shots and rely on opportunities through mistakes.


The only problem...the Capitals have also been sharpening up in terms of being a more complete team recently. Washington may be able to run and gun with the best of teams, but Defensemen Karl Alzner and John Carlson both revealed (in post practice interviews) that they have been looking over tapes on how to play the zone defense more effectively and operate on a blue line dump and chase system with the lead. While getting a lead will probably not come quick and easy against a stingy and alert Sabres team, it will be even more unlikely that Washington will be battling back from an early multi-goal deficit, especially with the game mentality that they are extracting from their previous game. May it be further mentioned, the Buffalo Sabres are the only team that is averaging well under 2 Goals For per game in the entire league!


The Bottom Line: It is impossible to sugar coat how bad Buffalo's offense is, even with two of their better forwards in the lineup. Despite Washington being an offensive team first and foremost for the majority of the campaign thus far, it is not surprising to see that the Capitals are indeed capable of playing under simple and basic fundamentals where they have to fight for their wins through stretches of complete all around hockey. This should be a very responsibly played game by Washington, but at the same time, they should be the aggressor that will find themselves on the attack but not scoring in bunches.


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