#CapsPens Skate Shavings: You Again

For the third straight season, the Caps will take on the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Pens won each of those two previous series, and Pittsburgh has claimed nine of the 10 previous playoff series against the Caps, three of them in the Alex Ovechkin era.

The Caps will be seeking a fifth straight win in tonight's Game 1, which would match the longest playoff winning streak in Washington's franchise history. Back in 2009, the Caps won the last three games of their first-round series with the New York Rangers to dig out of a 3-1 hole in the series, then they won the first two games of their second-round set with Pittsburgh, only to fall in seven games.

Pittsburgh has gone on to win the Stanley Cup after five of its nine playoff series wins over Washington, while the Caps are seeking to move beyond the second round for the first time in 20 years.

Mission: Control - In each of their last four playoff series dating back to 2016, the Caps have trailed early in the series. They were able to rebound from 2-1 down to Toronto in the first round last spring, and from 2-0 down to the Blue Jackets in the first round this spring, winning both of those series. But 3-1 series deficits against the Penguins have - not surprisingly - ultimately proven to be too big of a mountain for the Caps to climb.

The Penguins are aiming for a 10thconsecutive playoff series victory in this series, and when you look back at their nine straight series victories, one thing that stands out is the fact that they rarely trailed and never by more than a game. The Pens have never been worse than 1-1 after two games in their last nine playoff series, and they've rarely trailed late in series.

Pittsburgh dug out of a 3-2 series deficit to defeat Tampa Bay in the 2016 Eastern Conference final, and it was down 2-1 to Ottawa in the 2017 ECF series. Other than that, the Pens have had the luxury of playing from ahead. Listening to some of the fallen Blue Jackets speaking after their Game 6 ouster at the hands of the Caps earlier this week, Columbus clearly believes that owning a lead for less than 21 minutes of the more than 400 minutes played in the series left them in the unenviable position of chasing games and chasing the series, once the Caps squared it by winning Games 3 and 4.

Washington's best chance at overcoming the Penguins might be by putting them in an unfamiliar position, down a couple of games in the set.

"That's our focus," says Caps center Jay Beagle. "If we've learned anything from last year, you don't lose [the first] two. It's tough to climb out of that. And then this year the first round, we lose two. It's tough to climb out. It makes the series really hard; you always feel like you're chasing and no room for error. The good side is we found out what we were made of in the first round, a little bit. We saw how we needed to play, and that was a good thing.

"We've got to just make sure that we're looking at Game 1, we're not looking ahead. We've got to go after them this first game and really try to take it to them in our rink."

"It would benefit us not only against them, but any team," says Caps coach Barry Trotz. "It's always harder to dig yourself out of a hole, because your room for error is a lot less and it wears on you. There is no question.

"I think in the last series [Jackets coach] John [Tortorella] - it might have been John; it might have been one of their players - said, 'We didn't have the lead all series.' Even in games, they never had the lead, and that wears on you. You think about how every play could put yourself in a bigger hole. It's like not being able to play the bills; you're worrying about that the whole time. It can wear on you.

"In the past, we've trailed some series. And we got ourselves on the right side of this last one. A good lesson for us, and at the same time it was a good learning experience for us because it did give us the knowledge and the confidence that we will deal with whatever comes our way."

Banged Up - For Game 1 of this second-round set between Washington and Pittsburgh, neither team will be at full strength. The Caps are without winger Andre Burakovsky, who scored two goals in Game 6 of the series between the teams last spring. Burakovsky is week-to-week after suffering an upper body injury in Game 2 of the Caps' first-round series against Columbus.

Pittsburgh will be without center Evgeni Malkin (lower body) and winger Carl Hagelin (upper body). Malkin traveled to D.C. - leading one to believe he may be able to return as soon as Sunday afternoon's Game 2 - but Hagelin did not. Malkin missed Game 6 of Pittsburgh's first-round series with Philadelphia while Hagelin left that game after suffering his ailment.

Malkin was fourth in the NHL in goals and in scoring during the regular season, and Hagelin is a key cog in Pittsburgh's penalty-killing outfit.

Pittsburgh will elevate center Riley Sheahan - acquired from Detroit early in the season - to its second line with Phil Kessel on the right side, and it will slot Dominic Simon on the left side of that same line in Hagelin's usual spot.

"Riley has played a lot of really good hockey for us," says Pens coach Mike Sullivan, "and there was a stretch of games before we acquired [Derrick Brassard] at the deadline when Riley was playing with Phil, and we felt they were playing extremely well together. So I think it was an obvious option for us when we didn't have Geno available to us for that last game.

"Riley brings that 200-foot game, he is a north-south guy, he gets in on pucks - as does Haggy with his foot speed - and I think that helps a guy like Phil. Brass' line with [Bryan Rust and Connor Sheary] on it, we've really liked. We think that line has been really good since we put it together; they've had a lot of scoring chances at five-on-five. We really like that line, and so we really didn't really want to change it if we didn't have to. So for those reasons, we opted to put Riley with Phil and keep Brass' line together, and we liked what we saw from both."

In The Nets -Carrying a four-game winning streak, the longest of his Stanley Cup playoff career, Braden Holtby gets the net for Washington in Game 1 against the Pens. After stepping into the Caps' first-round series against Columbus late in Game 2, Holtby went 4-1 with a 1.92 GAA and a .932 save pct., and he stopped all 19 shots he faced on the Blue Jackets' power play.

Lifetime against the Pens in the postseason, Holtby is 5-8 with a 2.57 GAA and a .908 save pct. with two of the losses coming in overtime. He has permitted two or fewer goals in six of the 13 games - including each of the last three straight - and he is 4-2 in those contests.

Matt Murray gets the net for Pittsburgh. Although he is still just a kid at 23, Murray has already helped backstop the Pens to a pair of Cup championships, and he has been better in the postseason than the regular season during his three seasons in the league. Murray is 26-11 lifetime in the playoffs, with six shutouts (two of them this spring), a 1.99 GAA and a .926 save pct.

Murray was injured during last spring's Pittsburgh-Washington series; it was veteran Marc-Andre Fleury who was in goal when the Pens prevailed in a seven-game series in 2017. Murray is 4-2 against Washington in the postseason with a 2.40 GAA and a .926 save pct.

In eight career regular season starts against the Capitals, Murray is 4-4 with a 3.66 GAA and an .882 save pct. He has been dented for three or more goals in six of those eight regular season starts against Washington, but only three of six in the postseason.

All Lined Up - Here is how we expect the Caps and Penguins to look when they take to the ice on Thursday night for Game 1 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series game at Capital One Arena:

WASHINGTONForwards

8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson

18-Stephenson, 19-Backstrom, 77-Oshie

10-Connolly, 20-Eller, 25-Smith-Pelly

13-Vrana, 83-Beagle, 39-Chiasson

Defensemen

6-Kempny, 74-Carlson

9-Orlov, 2-Niskanen

44-Orpik, 29-Djoos

Goaltenders

70-Holtby

31-Grubauer

Scratches

22-Bowey

28-Jerabek

63-Gersich

72-Boyd

Injured

65-Burakovsky (upper body)

PITTSBURGHForwards

59-Guentzel, 87-Crosby, 72-Hornqvist

12-Simon, 15-Sheahan, 81-Kessel

43-Sheary, 19-Brassard, 17-Rust

46-Aston-Reese, 37-Rowney, 34-Kuhnhackl

Defensemen

8-Dumolin, 58-Letang

3-Maatta, 4-Schultz

6-Oleksiak, 2-Ruhwedel

Goaltenders

30-Murray

1-DeSmith

Scratches

22-Hunwick

Injuries

62-Hagelin (upper body)

71-Malkin (lower body)