Tonight was the start to the Stanley Cup playoffs and weirdly enough, we had just Game 1 between the Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins. Round one, plenty of bad blood between these two teams. You got Zdeno Chara facing his old team. The match up of these two is a great one because of the skill level between both of them. No matter what happens for the next games, it will be great to watch.
Game 1 was a show of how neck-and-neck this will be. During the regular season, these two played each other 8 times and they were evenly matched for it. They went 4-4-0, with 25 Capitals’ goals and 26 Bruins’ goals. The corsi for bounced between them in games, there was no clear sign of one dominating the other. Now look at how Game 1 went.
The Caps scored first with a goal from Tom Wilson (because hockey Gods love drama) 6:22 into the first period. Then Jake DeBrusk got Boston even about 6 minutes later. Boston was on their heels a bit but shots were close with Washington having 11 and Boston having 7.
Into the second, Brenden Dillon got a goal to give the Caps the lead back 8:44 into the period and what do you know, Nick Ritchie got a softie on the PP at 16:38. Washington had another 11 shots and Boston had 9. Boston kept having series of shots that got so close but didn’t go in. They got lucky that the Ritchie one slipped past Craig Anderson. Once again tied up into the next frame.
The third was scoreless but the shots were still close, 8 BOS, 9 WSH. It was also by this point that the tempers were really flaring. There were some scuffles earlier in the game but this is where it kicked up. Another reason I said this will be a good series is because these teams have bad blood between them. They’ll throw hits and not give a fuck. This is just Game 1, there will be mitts thrown before the end of the series.
OT was a doozey. A T.J. Oshie shot, deflected in by Nic Dowd, ended up being the lucky shot to score that OT GWG. After the year Ohie has had, he deserves that. The goal was put under review for offside but it ended up being a good goal. The Caps take Game 1 in OT but it’s still a pretty even matched race. Per usual with the Caps, plenty of storylines in this one. Their goalie gets hurt early in the first, Tom Wilson scores the first goal, Pissed Off Ovi makes an appearance, and the OT GWG had to be reviewed. Wild start to these playoffs, eh?
All that being said, I’m actually going for the Bruins. Don’t care how many games, I just say that they’ll get it done. I think they have a good team around them. In this series it’s so evenly matched up that it really can go either way and I wouldn’t be too shocked if it did. Yet, go B’s. Get the puck control together and start slamming home shots please. Game 2 will be Monday at 6:30PM CT. Until then we have a loooot of other hockey games to watch.
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Featured Image: Washington Capitals Twitter
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