In Game One of the 2018 Stanley Cup Final, the Washington Capitals fell to the Vegas Golden Knights 6 to 4 and will now look to even the series on Wednesday before heading home to DC.
The Capitals were out-shot 34 to 28 and out-attempted at five-on-five 61 to 59.
- The Capitals are now 0-5 in Stanley Cup Final games in franchise history. Lets hope that they can turn that around and make it 4-5.
- John Carlson now holds the franchise record for career playoff goals by a defenseman with 17, passing Kevin Hatcher‘s total of 16. He came very close to scoring his 18th and 19th career goals as he dented the posts behind Marc-Andre Fleury. Carly is gonna get paid, folks.
- Things were looking great when Tom Wilson scored his fourth goal of the playoffs. That goal was his 13th overall point of this postseason, 12 of which have come at even strength. That’s fantastic production that the Capitals need in their lineup for this entire series, so behave Willy.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov extended his franchise-record, playoff point streak to 11 games. He is the first player to record a point streak of 11-plus games in a postseason since Jonathan Toews (13 games) and Johan Franzen (12 games) back in 2010. If the Caps come back and win this series, Kuzy has to be in major contention for the Conn Smythe.
- Another bright spot was Lars Eller‘s third line. Eller, Andre Burakovsky, and Brett Connolly were easily the Caps most effective trio on the night, dominating their matchup with Cody Eakin‘s line and Luca Sbisa‘s pairing. Burakovsky led the way with a team-high 65.7-percent five-on-five shot attempt percentage and a 69.2-percent five-on-five scoring chance for percentage.
- The Caps fourth line got absolutely pummeled by Vegas’ fourth line. The goal that made the game 5-4 came on a fourth line shift where Devante Smith-Pelly failed to clear a puck that he had full possession of on the half wall. If things don’t go as planned in Game Two, I might start sounding the kangaroo call for one Nathan Walker.
- Last but certainly not least, Ryan Reaves blatantly cross-checked Carlson in the back to score the Golden Knights’ fourth goal, which tied the game. This infraction occurred directly in front of one of the referees and is what spurred on the Golden Knights win, as I believe the Caps had all of the momentum at that stage of the game. I also believe that, that non-call led to the Wilson interference on Jonathan Marchessault and the game getting out of hand from there. These officials are apparently in the final based on merit, but seem afraid to actually do what they are paid to do. The Caps clear special teams advantage may not have any hold in this series if the NHL is fine with their officials swallowing their whistles to that ridiculous degree. To put things more simply, that was some straight up bull excrement that I’m obviously still not over.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, Hockeystats.ca, NaturalStatTrick.com, Capitals PR, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Game One
Headline Photo: Bruce Bennett
