CAPS TOP PENGUINS TO OPEN NHL EAST SEMIS

The NHL got what they wanted with a second round series pitting arguably the two biggest stars in the game against each other, and they have to be even happier after Saturday’s  hard fought game one.  Alex Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals hung on to defeat Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 thanks to an early third period goal by Tomas Fleischmann.  Game two is back on the Caps home ice at the Verizon Center on Monday night before shifting to Pittsburgh for games three and four starting on Wednesday.

Pittsburgh took a 1-0 lead just 4:09 into the game when Sidney Crosby scored his fifth goal of the playoffs assisted by Bill Guerin and Sergei Gonchar.  The Caps would respond at 13:50 of the opening period with Dave Steckel’s goal set up by Matt Bradle and Brooks Laich to even the score at 1-1.  Alex Ovechkin’s power play goal at 17:03 assisted by Alexander Semin and Nicklas Backstrom would give Washington their first lead of the game, and they’d take this 2-1 advantage into the first period intermission.

Pittsburgh would knot the score at 12:54 of the second period on Mark Eaton’s third goal of the playoffs set up by Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz.  The 2-2 tie would stand until the 1:46 mark of the third period, when Tomas Fleischmann lit the lamp assisted by Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin.  21 year old (he turned 21 on 4/27) Russian goaltending phenom Simeon Varlamov would withstand a 13 shot barrage the rest of the way to preserve the 3-2 game one victory for the Capitals.

While both teams’ marquee superstars lit the lamp, Washington’s Dave Steckel emphasized the importance of getting offensive productivity from the third and fourth lines during the playoffs:

"You need secondary scoring in the playoffs and it was our time to step up and help the guys out and get some points. You're not going to win games with only your first and second line because obviously the defense is going to be keying on them."

Caps’ coach Bruce Boudreau stressed the importance of not getting behind in the series like his team did against the Rangers in the first round:

"This team is better. No disrespect to New York, but we'd have no chance being down 2-0 to be able to duplicate it."

Despite the loss, Pittsburgh coach Dan Blysma was fairly pleased with his team’s effort in game one:

"Our shot total was 36. That's something you like to see at the end of the game. I think we could have added a few more. We had opportunities. We had chances to get some more goals. We didn't get enough to get the goals we needed to win, so we're going to try to get some more from the 36 shots."

The problem for Pittsburgh is that getting more goals requires getting the puck past Varlamov, and that’s not been an easy task.  In seven playoff games, Varlamov has allowed a total of 9 goals for a microscopic 1.28 goals against average.