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At 7 p.m. tonight, the Washington Capitals will face off against the Vancouver Canucks—-a team they don’t get to see very often, what with the National Hockey League’s current unbalanced schedule format, which has teams from opposing conferences play each other only two times every three years. The last time the two teams played one another was almost a year ago to the day—-on October 27, 2006, when the Canucks beat the Caps 3-2 in a shootout in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Canucks haven’t been to D.C., however, in over three and a half years, back when twin brothers Henrik and Daniel Sedin were just beginning to establish themselves as legitimate scoring sensations.
Of the two, center Henrik—-older by six minutes—-is the more gifted playmaker, racking up a career-best 71 assists to go with 10 goals for 81 points last season. Of course, a good number of those assists were off of goals by left wing and line-mate Daniel, who put up a career-best 36 goals as well as 48 assists for 84 points last season. (It has yet to be seen how either of the Sedin brothers performs without the other: Ever since Daniel and Henrik were drafted second and third, respectively, in the 1999 NHL draft, they’ve both remained relatively healthy, missing only a handful of games in their six seasons in the league. In fact, they’ve missed almost the same number of games. Perhaps, like evil twin brothers Tomax and Xamot of the G.I. Joe universe, if you knock one out the other one goes down, too?)
So yeah, Henrik’s the better passer, Daniel’s the better shooter, and they’re as identical as identical twins get, so it’s hard to tell who’s more of a looker. But the real question is, which one is the better dancer?