Posted by Scott Burnside
WASHINGTON -- Well, the first period is in the books here at Verizon Center, and I think that by any measuring stick, this much-anticipated series is off to a roaring start. The Penguins really dictated play early on, a function of being able to roll three productive lines. Once again, the Pens' unit of Tyler Kennedy, Jordan Staal and Matt Cooke continues to dominate puck possession in the opponent's zone. They did it virtually every game against Philadelphia in the first round and continued it through the first part of the first period in Game 1 today.
Given all of the attention on the big three -- Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin -- it wasn't all that surprising to see all three have a hand in the proceedings in the first period, both positively and negatively.
Crosby opened the scoring in the series just 4:09 in, as he backed off defenseman Brian Pothier and then cut to the slot and beat rookie netminder Simeon Varlamov high to the glove side. It's probably a shot Varlamov should have stopped.
Through the first half of the period, the Penguins outshot the Caps by a wide margin; Washington didn't register its first shot on goal until about the 10:43 mark, although Tomas Fleischmann did ring one off the crossbar on a Caps 3-on-2.
Things began to turn the Caps' way, though, when David Steckel arrived late on a play and put home a big, fat rebound to tie it at 1-1 on the team's third shot. It looked from the replay like Malkin didn't get on the back check in time to control Steckel, who was all alone in front. Then, the Pens took two penalties in succession and, well, if you're going to give the Caps 59 seconds of a two-man advantage, you'd better be prepared to pay the price. And the Pens did. Ovechkin found a nice space to the side of the Penguins' net and snapped home a nice fake slap shot pass from Alexander Semin to give the Capitals a 2-1 lead.
The Penguins had one power-play opportunity in the first period and generated good pressure but couldn't score. They will carry a power play into the second period thanks to a late holding call on Chris Clark, but the Penguins' power play is going to have to get untracked at some point if they're going to be successful. They haven't scored with the man advantage since late in Game 3 of the first round.
ESPN.com Stanley Cup playoffs blog
