Defense was the name of the game in the first second-round showdown between the Ottawa Senators and New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
But neither stingy play from the likes of Henrik Lundqvist nor stingy Sens play from the direction of Guy Boucher were highlights of Saturday's Game 2, when the Eastern Conference foes combined for 11 goals and the Senators rallied for a 6-5 double-overtime victory to take a 2-0 series lead. Ditto for the Pittsburgh Penguins-Washington Capitals duel later in the night -- a 6-2 blowout in favor of the defending champions.
Big-play offense was the clear-cut theme of Saturday's action:
Anyone who doubted the Penguins should stop right now
This applies first and foremost to yours truly. Maybe it was OK to think the Columbus Blue Jackets would play tight defense vs. Sidney Crosby, Jake Guentzel and the Pens' score-happy bunch, but then Pittsburgh trampled Sergei Bobrovsky in the first round. Maybe it was OK to think the Capitals, loaded with talent and built to unseat the reigning title winners, would finally do damage against the Pens, but then Pittsburgh unleashed an off-the-charts Game 1 encore on Saturday.
Wipe away the Pens' empty-net sixth goal, and the dominance over the Alex Ovechkin, Braden Holtby and the Presidents' Trophy-winning Eastern Conference favorites is still hard to ignore. Eight different players were credited with an assist on Saturday, and the list of highlights from Crosby, who ascended to second on the franchise's all-time postseason points list, and the rest of the Pittsburgh offense is endless.
Guentzel was flinging pucks past Holtby with ease. And Sid, of course, was making things look pretty:
Never say never, but the Capitals are in one heck of a hole as they look to overcome a 2-0 series deficit in their quest to beat the Pens in the postseason for the first time since 1994. Making things worse for Washington, which was supposed to have the clear upper leg at home vs. Marc Andre-Fleury, the series is now headed for back-to-back games in Pittsburgh.
The Senators will not go down easily after an offensive explosion
A 2-1 affair in the Rangers-Senators series' opening game tipped in Ottawa's favor thanks to Boucher's tight defense and some eye-opening shots from the one and only Erik Karlsson. But Craig Anderson was not exactly a shining beacon of success in Saturday's rematch, when New York unleashed the offensive performance Rangers fans got sporadic glimpses of in the team's first-round series vs. the Montreal Canadiens.
This late-game save of his, though, was a big reason Jean-Gabriel Pageau's hat trick even kept the Senators alive and, ultimately, pushed Ottawa past New York:
Brady Skjei, who fired two goals past Anderson's glove, may have had Rangers faithful calling for his presence on defense, and New York as a whole deserved credit for coming up big in even the worst of circumstances, scoring two short-handed goals vs. Boucher's "D."
The Senators, however, refused to back down and put three -- yes, three -- third-period goals past Lundqvist, including the tying shot that knotted up the contest at 5-5 with 1:02 left in regulation. "Hank," despite surrendering four Sens scores by the time the final minute of regulation rolled around, came up big by halting the Sens on power-play opportunities and refusing to let Ottawa take a lead, but he was also completely and utterly dominated by Pageau, whose fourth goal of the night sealed the Senators' big win:
What looked like a series-evening Rangers win quickly became a dominant Senators showing, putting pressure on New York to come up big in another road matchup slated for Game 3, not to mention back-to-back games at Madison Square Garden, where the Rangers struggled this season.