The morning after the Caps stopped a four-game winless run with a convincing 4-1 win over the San Jose Sharks, Washington prepped for the last game of a three-game homestand. The Nashville Predators come to town on Saturday.

Goalie Jose Theodore left after the first period of the San Jose game because of back spasms, yielding to Semyon Varlamov. Varlamov, seeing his first game action in nine days, stopped all 15 shots he faced in earning his second win of the season.

Varlamov will start against the Preds. Theodore is unlikely to suit up on Saturday; the Caps recalled Braden Holtby from ECHL South Carolina on Friday to serve as Varlamov’s back-up.

“He probably won’t play Saturday,” says Caps coach Bruce Boudreau of Theodore, “but he’ll be ready to play [on Thursday] in Atlanta.”

Varlamov was sharp against the Sharks after giving up goals in bunches in some of his preseason and early season efforts.

“I’m really happy for him, but I knew he’d be fine,” says Boudreau. “I think it was all about getting his mind [right]. He is so wound up all the time about being so good and just [needs] to relax and let the game come to him. And he did that yesterday. He is such a talented guy that he is going to be good in this league for a lot of years.”

On Friday morning, Varlamov told reporters that he felt fine going in cold after the first period but felt like he might not have had such good results had he been called upon in the third period.

“He wants to shut out everybody every game,” says Boudreau. “It just looked to me like he was letting things bother him. When he got a goal scored on him, instead of letting it go and thinking, ‘Okay, what can I do to prevent the next one?,’ he was still thinking of the last one. So in all his previous games they were scoring goals in clumps. And if he learned from that, what a great cheap lesson.”

Injured Caps center Boyd Gordon (back) also won’t play tomorrow, but should return soon.

“He’s not going to play tomorrow,” says Boudreau of Gordon, “but he should be ready to go I would think by Thursday.”

John Erskine missed Thursday’s game with an upper body injury. He is on injured reserve and will be eligible to come off on Thursday when Washington travels to Atlanta.

In order to accommodate Holtby on the active roster, the Capitals placed forward Tomas Fleischmann on long term injured reserve, retroactive to the start of the season. Fleischmann has been sidelined with deep vein thrombosis but is getting close to returning to game action.