The Washington Capitals opened their 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs with a 4-2 win over a pesky Carolina Hurricanes team. The Caps were able to get their man advantage unit on track and staved off a third period Canes rally to get the victory.

The Canes out-shot the Caps 29 to 18.

• This was not a pretty game for the Caps when we take a look at the five-on-five shot/shot attempt battle. You can see above that the Canes really limited the Caps in terms of firing the puck towards Petr Mrazek. But, and this is a big but, the Canes didn’t exactly have a pretty game at five-on-five either. They had a ton of possession of the puck and didn’t create many high danger chances with it. The end total at five-on-five in high danger chances only ended 6 to 4 for the Canes and if we include both teams time with a man advantage (Carolina 5:05, Washington 6:12), the Caps actually won the battle 9 to 7. I don’t think the Caps should seek to repeat this kind of game as we want them to both dominate play and the scoreboard, but hey it’s the playoffs now and a win is a win.
• In all honesty, this game should have been totally over within five minutes of the third period starting. Nic Dowd was stopped on a breakaway, Carl Hagelin was stopped on a breakaway, Brett Connolly was stopped in the low slot, and Lars Eller was stopped in the low slot. Referring back to my previous point, it may have seemed like the Canes had the puck for pretty much 80-percent of this game, but can you remember a flurry of very dangerous chances like the Caps had at the start of the third from the Canes at any point in this game?
• This is a little bit of an obvious take here, but Nicklas Backstrom is the smoothest dude in the world when it comes to entering the offensive zone with possession of the puck. He doesn’t do it with the speed of a Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon, but with just this cerebral precision that is so rare in the NHL. We saw this on his first goal of the night.
• Christian Djoos needs to play more than 7:48 of total ice time. That’s ridiculous. Get Carlson off of his off hand please.

The Capitals are now 28-20 all-time in Game 1s, and 19-11 at home.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 12, 2019

• Going back to Backstrom, his two goals in this game were his 99th and 100th career points (33 goals, 67 assists) in the postseason. He’s one of only 95 players in NHL history to score 100 points in the playoffs and one of only nine active players.
• The Caps power play went 2-for-4 in this game and was the obvious difference maker in the win. Last playoffs, the Caps sported 29.3-percent power play effectiveness, the fourth highest by a team in a single playoffs since the NHL began tracking the statistic in the 1977-78 season. Your special teams are important.
• Alex Ovechkin‘s 62nd goal in his 122nd career playoff game tied him with Bobby Hull for 27th on the NHL’s all time list.

Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.

Full RMNB Coverage of Game One

Headline photo: Rob Carr