OK, nice. Rod's teams have a pretty ridiculous record in series when they win the first game, so you can maybe get a deep breath after last night. The Canes just sucked ALL of the air out of the building right from the opening faceoff, and while a shooting percentage that low can be frustrating, I think somebody on the TV broadcast eventually stumbled on the truth either late in the 3rd or early in OT. The Canes system is such that they defend in their offensive zone, and a perfect Canes game is one where the majority of the opponent's possession time comes in the D zone trying to break out. Not sure they quite got there last night, but Washington's stats are prettttty close to flatlined. So yeah, volume shooting. What a concept.
It was fitting that a Slavin seeing-eye puck won that game. He was special all night, accumulating a +4.5 Game Score as a defender who doesn't get power play time is sort of bonkers. There was very little to complain about from Carolina. Waker and Ghost got knocked around a bit, but that's fairly normal. The 4th line lost its impact when they lost their center, but that's also to be expected. Otherwise, everybody was on the plus side of the ledger and at least holding their own out there. They managed to chirp and chip Wilson to the point where he spent almost his entire 3rd period trying to dive his way to a power play. I saw the guy pass up several opportunities to play the puck in favor of his theater act and Aho drove him sufficiently mad that Wilson resorted to grabbing his mouthpiece. That's gross dude, and more than a little embarrassing for you. That's EXACTLY what you want if you're Carolina. Will they get it again? I doubt it. Wilson's no dummy and his post game comments made it clear that he knows how poorly he played. Speaking of playing poorly, other than that one shift where he threw 3 or 4 hits, did anybody notice Ovechkin last night? Or Strome? Make no mistake, the Caps WILL play better in Game 2. They'd struggle to do any worse.
It was fitting that a Slavin seeing-eye puck won that game. He was special all night, accumulating a +4.5 Game Score as a defender who doesn't get power play time is sort of bonkers. There was very little to complain about from Carolina. Waker and Ghost got knocked around a bit, but that's fairly normal. The 4th line lost its impact when they lost their center, but that's also to be expected. Otherwise, everybody was on the plus side of the ledger and at least holding their own out there. They managed to chirp and chip Wilson to the point where he spent almost his entire 3rd period trying to dive his way to a power play. I saw the guy pass up several opportunities to play the puck in favor of his theater act and Aho drove him sufficiently mad that Wilson resorted to grabbing his mouthpiece. That's gross dude, and more than a little embarrassing for you. That's EXACTLY what you want if you're Carolina. Will they get it again? I doubt it. Wilson's no dummy and his post game comments made it clear that he knows how poorly he played. Speaking of playing poorly, other than that one shift where he threw 3 or 4 hits, did anybody notice Ovechkin last night? Or Strome? Make no mistake, the Caps WILL play better in Game 2. They'd struggle to do any worse.
