That was a good start for the Capitals. Beyond the scoreboard, of course.
Losing game one is not ideal, and technically, it gives up home-ice advantage. That being said, there is a lot of positives that the Capitals can take from the game - but the main one is that they were beaten by Marc-Andre Fleury, something not likely to keep happening.
While Fleury is a Cup winning goalie, he has lost his starting job to rookie Matt Murray, and I believe it is unanimously agreed upon that Holtby is the best goalie in the series.
If your best advantage is the reason you lost the game, it's hard to be too upset about it.
The Capitals lost the game basically because of a one-minute stretch where Sidney Crosby scored two goals. (One of them was one of the nicest goals we've seen so far in the Playoffs).
In fact, the Caps controlled nearly 70% of the shots at 5v5 - numbers that give them a massive advantage.
If you lose a game where you control 70% of the shots, what are you supposed to do? It happens. Can't get too upset about it. It's a seven game series, and if the Capitals play like they did last night they are going to win four of those games, probably in a row.
Not a single Penguins player was over 50%.
Connor Sheary was absolutely destroyed - he was on the ice for one shot for and 22 against, giving him a Corsi Rating of 4.35%.
To put that into perspective, had I dressed in his place, it is doubtful I would have done worse. I will have to re-watch the game to double check and make sure he had two skates on the whole night.
Bonino-Wilson-Sheary were just absolutely annihilated.
As was the Pittsburgh defense. Look, I don't care how good Crosby and Malkin are, I don't care if the Penguins won the Cup last year, or the last five years, they dressed this last night:
Doumalin - Hainsey
Maata - Daley
Cole - Schultz
When Ron Hainsey is your number one defenseman (he led the Pens in 5v5 TOI, anyways) how can you expect to compete with the team that has Orlov, Shattenkirk, Niskanen, Carlson, and Schmidt?
No Penguin's D-man was over 37%.
And they won. Kinda sucks for the Caps because that game was stolen from them. At least now they now know they can crush and expose that awful defense.
In the end, the Penguins were truly lucky to win this game. The Leafs played better than the Penguins did in all six of their games.
After watching that game, I do not think people have been fairly rating the Penguin's - without Letang they're screwed. Letang makes his partner a near-elite player, and pushes everyone else down a peg. In terms of replacability, he might be the Penguin's most important player.
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