Caps' Fleischmann set to return; Varlamov to start

Tomas Fleischmann will make his season debut tonight in Atlanta, where the Caps will be looking to make it six in a row. What's not known about Fleischmann, though, is how much he's going to play in his return from deep vein thrombosis.

"There's two trains of thought there -- the quicker you throw him to the wolves, the quicker he gets up to speed," Coach Bruce Boudreau said. "Or you can bring him in slow. I haven't quite decided yet. Last year he killed penalties, was on the power play and was a top-six forward. We might do a combination of the both."

Boudreau said he'll know how much to play Fleischmann simply by looking at his face when he comes to the bench for a change.

"I'll see how tired he is after every shift," Boudreau said. "Everyone's heard about the greatest practice players who can't play. Now, he goes up against a group of men that don't want him to succeed; we'll see how it is."

As for Fleischmann, he's just happy to be back, regardless of his role.

Semyon Varlamov, meantime, will get a chance to redeem himself at Philips Arena. He picked up a 5-4 win here last week to bump his career record to 8-0-1, but the rookie definitely yielded two soft goals that almost cost the Caps. That also means Jose Theodore will play both games on the weekend.

Varlamov is expected to face Ondrej Pavelec, who was yanked in the previous meeting and also has something to prove.

The banged-up Thrashers are going to need Pavelec to be good, if not great tonight. They'll be without all-star Ilya Kovalchuk (broken foot) and also could be minus Nik Antropov (goin). Antropov skated this morning, but didn't look anywhere close to 100 percent.

"It's always a rally around the injured guy," Boudreau said. "I wish they would have had two games without [Kovalchuk] by now. But it's their first game since Saturday and second game since we beat them in this building. So I think it's going to be a really difficult thing."

Some other notes from this morning:

*Eric Fehr (ribs) and John Erskine (bruised hand) stayed on the ice, so that means they'll be the scratches. Boyd Gordon (sore back) didn't make the trip.

*Boudreau wouldn't divulge his forward lines for tonight's game. But if I had to guess, I would go with this: