Kicking off a series on the road, you can’t really expect your team to do much of anything.
And when your team goes down 2-0 on the road in Game 1, there’s exactly 1 (one) thing you can and should do.
But the Penguins….oh the Penguins…they have much different, grander plans. This is a Penguins team that hasn’t truly been out of a playoff game since the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals.
Events like playing porous defense or giving up 2 separate goals inside the first 30 seconds of two separate periods would’ve been enough to sink most teams. Looking at you, San Jose.
But, instead of mercy killing the Pens, the Capitals let them hang around long enough to have it come back and bite their dicks off. Whether it was not finishing into an open net or just flat out getting robbed by Murrda, the Caps lost this game on their own just as much as the Penguins rallied to take it from them.
Lethally and unsurprisingly, the catalysts behind the offensive side of the coin came in the form of Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel, spurring the Pens to a 1-0 lead in the series and a staggering 4-0 on the road in this postseason.
That seems good.
LINEUP
Here are tonight's line combinations for Game 1. pic.twitter.com/f85S5FmUuw
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) April 26, 2018
With Gene missing a 2nd straight game and Hags having been knocked the fuck out of Game 6, Dom Simon drew back into the lineup, playing LW with Elevated Riley Sheahan. Blue line remained the same against the Ian Cole Eliminators, manning the fort in front of Murr as he went head-to-head with Holtby.
GOALS
WSH – 1st Pd./0:17 – Kuznetsov; A: Ovechkin, Wilson – 1-0
Right off the opening faceoff, with both coaches sending out their top lines, they each seemed to be going for it. Neither disappointed either.
And it was the Peng getting the first clean look of the game as Crosby and Co. took the bouncing puck into the zone. Crosby handled it, getting it to Bake and driving straight to the net for the little deflection in front that Holtby had to deal with. As he steered it to the wall, Dumo pinched down on the piss drinker, forcing him backwards towards a crashing Crosby. Wilson, though, was able to blindly throw a pass through the middle of the ice, just out of the reach of Guentzel’s outstretched leg, to find Ovi. Gotta say, that shithead reeeeeeally got lucky to get away with such an unbelievably dangerous pass, but them’s the breaks sometimes.
Ovi goes on to collect the pass, pull Letang over just enough to airlift a feed to a streaking Kuznetsov to go straight in on Murr and open the scoring 17 seconds in with one fell swoop. Not a whole lot 58 or 30 could do there as Tang tried to delay the pass enough to get Guentzel back into the play. Either way, tough start.
https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/LiquidFeminineGrackle
As the period progressed, the Pens were just having to weather each and every named storm from the past year. The Caps were buzzsaws. Ovi missed a yawning 4×6, Murr was on point, Greg McKegg scored against the Baby Pens, and the Pens D was otherwise nothing short of ass blood.
The Penguins look like a bunch of randomly assorted people playing defense for the first time in their lives.
— Jesse Marshall (@jmarshfof) April 26, 2018
But as this team is known to do, they started settling in and getting chances of their own. First it was Dom Simon beating Holtby, but not the post. Then it was Riley Sheahan making Michal Kempny look like Josef Melichar to find Simon, who could not beat Holtby on his second straight 10 beller. On the following shift, Holtby again came up yuge, this time robbing Guentzel on a one-time feed from Dumo.
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And that was how the 1st period would end: with the Pens not only fortunate to be down just 1-0 at the first intermission, but also #blessed.
It was more of the same in the 2nd, which included Guentzel ringing one off the pipe on the opening shift and Wilson giving the Pens their first PP of the series for interference on Crosby. Both goaltenders were on full, elite display as Murr made the first Save of the Series candidate on DSP and Holtby stood tall, making 8 quality saves in the middle frame himself.
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WSH – 3rd Pd./0:28 – Ovechkin; A: Wilson, Orlov – 2-0
But with the opening shift of the 3rd period on the horizon, it felt like the 1st period all over again after the Pens broke up a Caps look in the offensive zone and tried to hit Hornqvist on the counter up the right wing wall. As he drove in, he got his pocket picked by Orlov, allowing Tom Wilson to summon the urine gods, finding Ovi once more with a blind pass and send him up the left wing on a 2v1. Vintage Ovi Goal.
https://gfycat.com/LongThreadbareBittern
PIT – 3rd Pd./2:59 – Hornqvist; A: Jultz, Guentzel – 2-1
If the Pens were going to have any chance of getting back into this, they were going to have to keep things Simple Jack. Best way to get that done is to get the puck in deep and chip away, which is what Patric Hornqvist was created by the Swedish gods to do. He went to work down low, working the puck out from low to high to Guentzel to sell a shot, only to defer to Jultz for a point shot of his own. Hornqvist Typical as the shot bypassed a sprawling Ovi and found its way to Big Dick Pat’s stick to cut the lead in half about 2.5 minutes later.
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I’ll take “How Not To Block a Shot” for 1600, Alex.
PIT – 3rd Pd./5:20 – Crosby; A: Guentzel, Hornqvist – 2-2
That Guentzel-Crosby-Hornqvist line used that to start taking over the game. On their next shift, they shut shit down in the neutral zone to turn the puck over and allow them once again to get themselves set for the stretch through the NZ. With Hornqvist streaking across the blue line, he was able to take the Dumoulin pass and deflect it to Bake to immediately hit Crosby on the far side of the ice. Got a little lucky coming off Ovi’s stick, but Crosby’s release was so quick that Holtby had no chance but to give up the equalizer.
https://gfycat.com/DishonestUnkemptDiamondbackrattlesnake
PIT – 3rd Pd./7:48 – Guentzel; A: Crosby – 3-2
That top line followed it up by doing it again on their next shift, starting with a hammering in the neutral zone. Crosby the culprit again, allowing Maatta the chance for a free dump in. Seemed pretty innocuous, but with Hornqvist barreling down on him, Holtby shit in his own mouth and gave it straight to Crosby to throw towards the cage where Bake lurked to just the tip it home short side. Absolutely a save Holtby needs to make. Three goals in under 5 minutes for the Peng.
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And as soon as the Pens took the lead, the Matt Murray Show made its series premier. Episode 1 started with him taking an Ovi wrister straight off the domepiece.
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And it finished with him making the absolute save of the game, possibly of the postseason, on Connolly with Holtby on the bench for the extra skater to bring it home.
https://gfycat.com/SoggyPoorArabianhorse
Give Matt Murray a lead in the postseason and he’ll take you to the steps.
Game.
NOTES
- The Pens top line is ridiculous. Another 3 points for Jake. Another 2 for 87. Jake now leads the postseason with 7 goals and 16 points.
- Goaltending was always going to be a huge factor between these two teams. Matt Murray very clearly won the first duel of the series, making 32 saves (.941 SV%). What a showing.
- Caps blowing a 2 goal lead in Game 1 at home for the second straight series. Seems bad.
🙃🙃🙃 Caps led shot attempts 72-50 (64-46 at 5v5.) #PITvsWSH https://t.co/glnfh38u2J pic.twitter.com/liW49Hrmvv
— hockeystats.ca (@HockeyStatsCa) April 27, 2018
The Steps Part 1 pic.twitter.com/gseeEZPlcw
— Pens Knitting Lady (@PensKnittngLady) April 27, 2018
Pens have some shit to tighten up before Sunday afternoon’s Game 2, but a 1-0 lead is a 1-0 lead. Puck drops sometime after 3. Bury them. LGP.
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