With a combined straight-up listing of 19-4 when scoring first this postseason, the Pens and Preds understand better than anyone how important it is to get on the board first. Margins in a seven-game series are amazingly tight and the momentum obtained from scoring an icebreaker, particularly one on the road, can be a huge boost.
Nashville thought they’d done just that in Game 1 if P.K. Subban beat Matt Murray with a wrister to temporarily make the score 1-0 however, it was not to be. Mike Sullivan’s bet to challenge that Filip Forsberg was offside earlier on the play that Subban scored on paid off and the Preds’ target — and all of Nashville’s momentum — was erased.
The Penguins went on to score the following 3 goals of the match to take a 3-0 lead and, eventually, the Game 1 win.
Massive was win? Well, when you consider that since 2002 the home team is 9-1 up in Game 2 after winning Game 1, then it gets clear just how significant that overturned goal could be to the results of this sequence.
Here are those Game two results:I’m not here to argue whether the play was offside — it probably was — I’m just trying to paint a picture of how devastating that play was to Nashville’s Stanley Cup hopes.
When the home team wins Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final, they move on to win it about an 85% clip and even though I do not think the Preds are dead, the task they face is a mountainous one which not many teams in the background of the NHL have managed to summit.
Offside reviews are a novel idea but as we’ve seen over and over again in the almost unlimited examples across the significant North American sports-scape because reviews and challenges were introduced, stopping activity to see whether someone infracted a seemingly benign rule by an issue of millimetres can alter a game’s momentum drastically and change a team’s fortune for the worse.
As somebody who writes about, analyzes and stakes sports, Subban’s disallowed goal has left me with a sick feeling in my gut and I am firmly in the camp that is suggesting we create offside testimonials go the way of the FoxTrax glowing puck. Technological advances are not always good for the game — or even the viewer — which red and blue blunder from Fox was a clear example of why that’s true.
We’ll see what the Preds are really made of in Game 2 on Wednesday. If their play in the next period on in Monday’s series opener is any indication, they are more than up for the challenge and have a fantastic shot to beat the odds and ship this best-of-seven back to Smashville tied at ones.
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