GAME OF THE DAY/NIGHT: Pittsburgh Penguins at Washington Capitals, Saturday, May 2, 2009, 1pm ET

2-2 after 2.

After that SAVE by Varlamov...IMHO Monsieur Theodore has his hockey bag packed.

The Penguins' failures to backcheck will kill them if not corrected.

A Sykora turnover started that, I believe?

Did we see any forwards rushing back to cover?

That Fleischmann goal was a gift.

Washington takes game 1! Should be one hell of a series.

As much as the big stars will get the press in this series, the winner will be determined in large part by the play of the lesser-known, lines 3-4 guys.

Dave Steckel was instrumental to the Caps' win today, and has been a tremendously important player for them in the entirety of the playoffs so far.

I wonder if the Russian "trainer" that OV brought in is to play mind games with the other teams to suggest he may not be 100%. Heh heh.

pretty boring game. Both teams didn't play very well. That save by Varlamov was awesome though!

Sure hope Pitts can get their powerplay to a decent level. It looked horrible this game

Nasty Nas wrote:pretty boring game. Both teams didn't play very well. That save by Varlamov was awesome though!

Sure hope Pitts can get their powerplay to a decent level. It looked horrible this game

Nasty, where was Geno today? One assist. two SOGs, minus 1.

Lack of defensive responsibility on the part of the Pens does not bode well for them.

I was FFd most of the game to see the goals. One thing that was very obvious was the territorial dominance. Most of the game was played in the Pens' zone for large stretches. It's surprising it was just a 1-goal game, and could have been tied if Varlamov doesn't make that save (almost as nice as that Theodore save against the Bruins a few years back). Mind you, Ovechkin hit the post, so it evens out.

Still, I'm not very comfortable with my pick of Pittsburgh. But I picked them in 7, so they've got to lose 3; might as well one of them be the first one.

Yeah he wasn't so great today that is for sure. I cant remember
what goal it was but there was one where he just didnt fight for a puck
and let the capitals escape the zone without any chase and they
eventually scored.
I'm sure he'll come back with a strong effort.

wprager wrote:I was FFd most of the game to see the goals. One thing that was very obvious was the territorial dominance. Most of the game was played in the Pens' zone for large stretches. It's surprising it was just a 1-goal game, and could have been tied if Varlamov doesn't make that save (almost as nice as that Theodore save against the Bruins a few years back). Mind you, Ovechkin hit the post, so it evens out.

Still, I'm not very comfortable with my pick of Pittsburgh. But I picked them in 7, so they've got to lose 3; might as well one of them be the first one.

What was interesting to me was that at the beginning, it was the Caps who seemed like they couldn't get out of their own zone. The Pittsburgh system (at the start anyway) seemed to be dominating them. It took the Caps what, 7 minutes to get a shot on goal? Total count was 26 Washington 36 Pens.

Still, Boudreau made the necessary adjustments (that's why he's the reigning Adams winner), and the Pens ran into some special-teams issues.