1. The Old Man and the Zee
Zdeno Chara has played 1,608 NHL regular-season games and another 195 playoff matches. The entire Bruins blueline that is expected to skate in Saturday night’s Game 1 of the Caps/Bruins first-round series has played 1,480 games in the regular-season and 169 more in the playoffs. And, of course, Big Zee played 1,023/150 of those games in Boston’s black and gold.
Apparently that’s a storyline.
But what does it mean on the ice? Via The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir:
Expounding upon that, The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa:
As John Carlson put it…
Hopefully this intriguing story has a happy ending for Caps fans.
2. Mystery Goalie
Ah, the games coaches play come playoff time:
What intrigue! Will the Caps go with the guy who started 36 games for them this year, including six of the last eight, led all rookies in wins, and posted a decent-if-unspectacular 4-3-0/.905/2.86 mark against Boston this year? Or the guy who’s still on the COVID list (who was 0-1-0/.872/3.66 against the B’s anyway) and has played once since April 25? Or maybe the guy who will be 40 in a week, who has played two games since February? Hell, what about the AHL’s goals-against average leader?
I’m pretty sure we all know who’s going to be between the pipes tomorrow night, and he’s earned it (Vitek Vanecek, for those of you who are real slow on the uptake). Where they go from there should he falter, however, is another question…
3. Injury Updates
The Caps, of course, ended the season with some lingering (and new) injuries to key players, so let’s get an update on them:
Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Justin Schultz all played in the season finale and also appear to be good-to-go for Game 1.
Then, of course, there are the two… other guys:
So it looks like the Caps will start the series missing one or two of its top-six forwards. A tough task just got tougher…