1. The latest version of “the most important game of the season” is upon the Caps. Reasonable minds can disagree as to whether or not it’s a “must win,” but expect the Caps to give it all they’ve got:
There’s no panic in D.C. (well, on the team, that is; fanbase, you’re on your own), and Trotz knows his team did a heck of a lot of good things in Game 1:
And via Dump ‘n Chase:
As for largely trivial historical Game 2 performances, Caps Today has you covered:
The Pens, for their part, “[w]hen leading a best-of-7 playoff series 1-game-nil, have a series record of 19-7 with an active five-series winning streak and a Game 2 record of 16-10,” per WhoWins.com.
Both teams are 0-0 in the only game that matters right now – tonight’s – as of this publication.
2. One thing that the Caps failed to take full advantage of in the first round and now again in the second is having home ice for the series. That, unfortunately, is nothing new to the Ovechkin-Era Caps.
Since the start of the 2007-08 season, the Caps have gone 253-97-43 at Verizon Center during the regular season (a .644 win percentage, and the most standings points in the League over that span), but only 27-21 in the post-season (.563), a good-not-great percentage that ranks 10th among teams with more than a dozen home games played (Chicago leads the way at 45-19, .703). (H/t Peerless)
Meanwhile, Marc-Andre Fleury hasn’t won consecutive road playoff games since 2014 (he’s gone 3-4 since), and has a road playoff save percentage of just .893 and a goals against average of 3.42 in 27 games since winning the Cup in 2009 (.897/3.23 since 2008, .903/3.07 in 52 career road playoff games); he was 1-1/.873/4.15 in Columbus in Round 1 and is 9-9/.889/4.03 in his last 18 road playoff games, and posted a 4-7-5/.887/3.58 mark away from Pittsburgh during this past regular season. You get the point – Fleury’s Game 1 performance was exceedingly rare for him lately, and hopefully not repeatable.
3. Game 1 hero Nick Bonino and guy-who-didn’t-defend-that-Bonino-goal-particularly-well Kevin Shattenkirk go way back (in fact, they won a National Championship together at Verizon Center in 2009):
Hey, it’s called “The Narrative” for a reason – if you don’t care about a third-pair defenseman and a third-line forward from the other team being pals, we won’t judge.
But we do have one question… is this the first time a Capital has faced a playoff opponent for whom he was or would be the best man since Olie Kolzig and Byron Dafoe went at it in 1998?