Toronto scored the first goal of the series on a broken play. Tyler Bozak took a pass from Mitch Marner and skated the puck into the right wing faceoff circle. From there he fed the puck across to James van Riemsdyk, whose one-timer was blocked into the corner by goalie Braden Holtby. Van Riemsdyk managed to get the puck back in front between the hash marks where Marner had circled in, and Marner flipped the puck past Holtby’s left skate as he was tumbling to the ice to make it 1-0 just 1:35 into the game.
The Maple Leafs added to their lead eight minutes later. Jake Gardiner took a loose puck in the left
wing circle, backed off into a better shooting position, and using Nazem Kadri
as a screen slid the puck through on the open side as Holtby was trying to peek
around Kadri on the other side to find the shooter. The goal was initially waved off for
goaltender interference by Kadri, but upon video review it was reinstated.
Washington halved the lead less than three minutes later on
a power play. With two Leafs in the box,
Kevin Shattenkirk and Nicklas Backstrom
played catch with the puck on the right side.
Shattenkirk tried to one-time a feed from Backstrom to the net, but his
stick broke, and the puck slid off to the left, off a Leaf skate and to T.J.
Oshie at the bottom of the wing circle. Oshie
feathered a pass to the low slot, and Justin Williams redirected it past the
left pad of goalie Frederik Andersen to make it a 2-1 game 12:24 into the
period.
In the second frame, the Caps spent much of the first 16
minutes putting some Caps fans to sleep and inspiring other to express
displeasure at what looked like their indifferent play. But with four minutes left in the period the
Caps drew even. Evgeny Kuznetsov got the
play started, skating down the right wing into the Leafs’ end, putting on the
brakes, and feeding the puck across to Matt Niskanen entering the zone for a
one-timer. His shot was stopped by
Anderson, but not cleanly. With the puck
lying between his pads and unable to find it, Anderson was helpless against
Williams darting down the slot and poking the puck the rest of the way over the
goal line to make it a 2-2 game.
Entering the third period, you would have thought the Caps
would have a significant advantage. They
finished the regular season plus-30 in goal differential in the regular season,
while Toronto was minus-10. So much for
that. The teams played to a scoreless
third period, leaving it to overtime, and that is when this happened…
Game 1 goes to the Caps.
Strap yourselves in folks. This
could be interesting.
Other stuff…
1. Wilson just made a
solid, basic, simple play in the end. He
covered the wall to keep the Leafs from chipping the puck out. He settled it, and most important, he put the
puck on net. If seems self-evident, but
too often, a player might look to pass in that situation. Wilson got it through, and Frederik Anderson,
who had an otherwise superb game, seem to go to his knees a bit early, leaving the
top near corner open. And say what you
will, that Wilson wouldn’t hit that target against an open net once in 20
tries, he did it here…because he shot the damn puck. Oh, and it was Wilson’s first career playoff
goal. Not a bad way to get it.
2. It was not that
Braden Holtby was not sharp early. He
was a bit of a victim on the first goal, and he probably would like to have the
Leafs’ second goal back. But despite the
fact that his teammates allowed Maple Leafs to set up a little too freely in
front, he grew sharper as the game went on.
Late, he might have been the best Capital on the ice. He stopped the last 26 shots he faced.
3. Every Maple Leaf
but Morgan Rielly had a shot on goal, but the distribution might not have been quite
what Toronto wanted. Auston Matthews had
just one, none in the last 51 minutes, including overtime.
4. The same might be
said for the Caps. They had 44 shots on
goal, but Alex Ovechkin had just one of them, none in the last 53 minutes,
including overtime.
5. Kevin Shattenkirk
had nine shots on goal. That ties Kevin
Hatcher’s nine shots on goal in a 7-1 win over the New York Rangers in Game 3
of their Patrick Division final in 1990 for third-most shots on goal by a
defenseman in a postseason game for the Caps.
6. Think this is the
playoffs? The teams combined for 99
hits. Toronto, allegedly the smaller
club, managed to record 47 credited hits of their own. But half of the hits recorded by Toronto came
from three players – Matt Martin (10), Leo Komarov (8), and Roman Polak (6). For the Caps, every skater except Nicklas Backstrom
was credited with at least one of the 52 hits the club had. Matt Niskanen led them with seven.
7. Dmitry Orlov did
not have a point, but he had a solid game.
Four shots on goal, eight shot attempts, four hits, two takeaways, and
three blocked shots in 25:22 (tops in ice time for the Caps).
8. Evgeny Kuznetsov
had the best night, percentage-wise, in the faceoff circle, going
8-for-10. Can’t say that’s happened
often this season. He also showed a
creativity that was not rewarded much in this game (he did have an assist), but
he could be a big factor as this series goes on.
9. Lars Eller had a
brutal game… no shot attempts, a penalty, and he lost eight of 14 draws he took
in 11:39.
10. Getting three
goals matters. This was the 20th
time in the Rock the Red era that the Caps scored three or more goals in a
playoff game on home ice. They are now
15-3-2 in those games.
In the end…
It would be fair to say that this was one of the worst games
the Caps played in the 2017 portion of this season. Barry Trotz said in the post-game press
conference that he was not happy with the first 30 minutes. But he also pointed out that there was no
panic, and he was happy to see that. And
that brings us to the “glass-half-full” interpretation of this game. The Caps played poorly for 30 minutes, faced
a team that came out hard early, and squeaked out a win. And win is the only meaningful metric at this
time of year. The Caps certainly can
play better…a lot better. The Maple
Leafs might wonder if they have that next gear in them. It will make the first ten minutes or so of
Game 2 an interesting thing to watch.