Varlamov to start tonight

* Simeon Varlamov will start in net tonight agianst St. Louis for the Caps. Varlamov started Saturday night in Montreal and stopped 32 of 33 shots in the team's 2-1 win.

"He deserves another chance," Bruce Boudreau said. "He did really well in Montreal and we want to see if it was a fluke."

* Eric Fehr is back in the lineup, but Tyler Sloan will not be back tonight. Fehr will replace Alexandre Giroux. He hasn't played since hurting his shoulder against Toronto on Dec. 6.

* This will be Boudreau's first game against St. Louis, the last team he hadn't coached against in the NHL. More importantly, this will be his first head-to-head matchup with Andy Murray, who Boudreau cites as one of his two mentors from their time together in the Los Angeles organizaiton.

"This is a first for me," Boudreau said. "He's going to be prepared and he probably knows my coaching style. There is also his assistant, Ray Bennett, who was with him in L.A. for six years when I was there as well. They're going to know what we're going to do and they're going to match lines and they're going to work hard."

* Chris Clark, Jeff Schultz and Brian Pothier are on the ice now with Jose Theodore. Clark said he didn't have a good idea of how much longer he'd be out. Boudreau said yesterday he doesn't expect him until after Christmas.

Also on the ice with them is Andy Boudreau, Bruce's son. Andy was here this summer at development camp, but injured his knee early in the camp.