Breaking Down Round One: Boston vs. Washington

Ovie's coming for ya, Boston.

As you know by now, the Washington Capitals have drawn the defending Stanley Cup Champions in the first round of this year’s playoffs.  It’s a very tough matchup for the Capitals, both because of their continued playoff demons and because of the quality of the team across the rink from them.  Read on for my take on this series, broken down piece by piece.

Forwards: The Bruins have a fearsome corps of forwards, constructed with playoff hockey in mind.  No team in the NHL except Pittsburgh has the depth at center that the Bruins do, and their top line of Tyler Seguin, Brad Marchand, and Patrice Bergeron is smart and possesses the puck extremely well.  They don’t have the star power that the Caps’ top line does, but it’s still a very good top unit.  David Krejci, who led last year’s playoffs in goals, centers the second line with Jordan Caron and tough guy Milan Lucic.  Rich Peverley, one of the most underrated acquisitions for any playoff team in recent memory, is a very good two-way forward who is fast, offensively skilled, and responsible defensively; he is the straw the stirs the Bruins’ drink.  He drives their third line along with Chris Kelly and Benoit Pouliot, which gives you an idea of just how deep the Bruins are up front.  Daniel Paille, Greg Campbell, and Shawn Thornton make up one of the NHL’s best fourth lines, too.  Also of note is that the Bruins are the NHL’s best faceoff team, winning 54.5% of all draws, while the Caps are 17^th, winning an even 50%.  Washington has firepower, namely Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Alexander Semin, but Boston’s three scoring lines and crazy depth give them the clear advantage here.

Read the rest of this article here.

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