Posted by Scott Burnside
Interesting morning down at the Verizon Center before Monday night's Game 2:
• First, it continues to boggle the mind that the NHL chooses not to force the Penguins and Caps -- or any two teams during the playoffs -- to take the morning skate in the same building.
The Caps don't like to skate at the Verizon Center on game days, choosing most often to skate at their practice facility in Arlington, Va. Fair enough, but for the media covering the series -- and really, isn't it always all about the media? -- travel between the two sites on the morning of a game is difficult, not to mention annoying.
Once the playoffs reach the conference finals stage -- the next round, for those of you keeping score at home -- the NHL takes over control of these issues and dictates when and where teams will skate. That always means both teams skate at the main rink on the morning of a night game.
Why such a rule isn't enforced throughout the playoffs remains one of life's great mysteries, and is especially exasperating in a series like this, in which so much attention is paid to the participants.
• A fire alarm went off just as the Penguins were coming off the ice and was still blaring for the first part of the media availability. No truth to the rumor that Alex Ovechkin was seen fleeing the building after the din.
• We made ourselves indispensable to Penguins forward Matt Cooke this morning by assisting on his crossword puzzle. For some reason we knew a blood-sucking African fly was a tsetse fly. Go figure.
• Discovered that defenseman Rob Scuderi, one of the NHL's more thoughtful players, is reading "A River Runs Through It" during this playoff run.
• Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma defended the return of struggling forward Petr Sykora to the lineup in Game 1, saying he thought the Capitals might provide a better matchup than Philadelphia had. Sykora, who has one goal in his last 21 games, was a healthy scratch for Games 5 and 6 in the first round, but he was back in the lineup for Game 1 on Saturday afternoon, a 3-2 loss for the Pens. Underachieving forward Miroslav Satan, at one point banished to the minors after the trade deadline this season, had played in Sykora's place in the two first-round games.
"Not unhappy with Miro," Bylsma said. "[It's] just [that] I thought that Petr could be playing better, be more focused on what he does, and thought against this opponent [it was] a good opportunity for Petr to get back in there."
The Penguins' scoring depth, like their power-play productivity, has been on hiatus the past few games. But Bylsma said he thinks the goals will come eventually.
"When your team plays well and when you're doing consistently the right things and executing the right way, you give different individuals the chance to be the hero that night or score that big goal," Bylsma said. "Good teams play that way. And that gives a lot of different people opportunities to score goals, much like you saw from our team in the first round You don't have to score one every game. You know, Ruslan Fedotenko scores the goal in Game 6, it's a big goal for us, and that was him scoring for the first time in that series."
If there's a strategy for beating rookie netminder Simeon Varlamov in the Washington net, Bylsma said it's about putting the young goalie in different situations, giving him looks with which he may not be familiar.
"That's how you [attack] younger players in this league, whether it's defense or forwards: You put them in tough situations. You put a lot of pressure on them and try to get them in situations where you can get pucks by [them]."
ESPN.com Stanley Cup playoffs blog
