It’s finally here: THE rematch! Caps been been waiting a year to exact revenge on the Pens. There is no question that both these teams are great, hell they were 1-2 in the entire league this year. You have to imagine whoever wins this series is winning the Cup because there are no other teams left that are of the same calibre. The series can go either way as both teams are stacked, but with these 2 teams going at it, here are reasons why both fan bases should be worried.

WHY CAPS FANS SHOULD BE WORRIED

1) It’s the freakn Pittsburgh Penguins. They have been nothing but cruel to the Caps in the postseason. They have been bitter rivals for 10 years now and Caps never come out on top. Penguins have 2 Cups to show for it, Caps have years of heartache and possible stomach ulcers. Never should the Caps fanbase or the team take Penguins lightly, they are defending Stanley Cup Champions for a reason.

2) Sid and the Kids. This is the title given to the line of Guentzel-Crosby-Sheary. Since being put together a couple months back they have been a force to be reckon with. After watching them for a handful of games I have no idea how any team can detain them. They are fast, skilled, and slippery. I don’t know if Caps can stop them as much as can try to limit the damage. They only have 1 weakness and that is they aren’t great in their own zone and can be outmuscled. Issue is if you want them in their own zone you need to get the puck from them first and that’s a tall, tall order.

3) Malkin is shredding it right now. He currently leads the league in playoff points with 11 in 5 games. How elite is Malkin? Well there are times when he plays better than Crosby, issue is he can become complacent. He is the epitome of “don’t poke the bear” because when he is on he is nearly impossible to stop. He is huge, skilled, and crafty. Caps need to keep him asleep.

4) The Penguins are very well rested. They took care of the disappointing Blue Jackets in 5 games, with only 1 of those going to overtime. Caps on the other hand played 6 games and 5 of them went to overtime, so Caps are definitely going to be a bit more worn down. Caps will need to find that extra juice early to keep up with the Pens.

5) They shoot the puck a lot. This shouldn’t be too surprising since they are such a great offensive team but they averaged about 35 shots a game in the 1st round, Caps did average 35 but that’s with all those over times, without them Caps are shooting less. So Caps need to try their best to keep most of those shots to the outside, because if you let a volume of shots in dangerous areas you will get scored on a lot. Duh.

WHY PENS FANS SHOULD BE WORRIED

1) The Penguins are hurt. I know the Pens are still a really good team but don’t let anyone tell you the loss of Letang isn’t a huge blow because it is. Letang is one the best offensive dmen in the league and fits in so well with the Pens. Without him the Pens are much worse. Add Murray to this list. Fleury did have a good series against the Blue Jackets but there is no doubt that Murray is much much better than Fleury. Murray still hasn’t skated so he looks to be at least weeks out.

2) This isn’t the old Caps. What boned the Caps last season was there lack of depth and PITs superb depth. This year the Caps have a bottom 6 that can score and PIT not so much. The HBK line is what destroyed the Caps last year. Caps held Crosby and Malkin to ONE even strength point last playoffs, but the HBK shredded them. The HBK line is no more, it didn’t work all season and now Kessel has been bumped to the 2nd line. That means PITs bottom 6 is much less deadly. Caps have depth on both forwards and defense (Shattenkirk is on their bottom pairing) to give PIT fits.

3) The Caps are ready for the speed. Toronto is arguably just as fast or possibly faster than PIT and Caps handled them pretty well. The 6 games prepped the Caps for PITs speed and gave them time to learn new adjustments such as using Schmidt more and using Orlov and Niskanen as their shutdown pair. And PIT will go from a struggling CBJ to the best team in the league so PIT will have to go through their own adjustments facing the best team in the league.

4) The Caps were extremely unlucky against TOR in their series and still won. 10 of TOR 16 goals were flukey to say the least. Last year PIT had a 4-1 advantage in lucky bounces and won the series because of them. I don’t know how much unluckier the Caps can be. If they can get any type of bounces or more importantly no weird goals against they could open the flood gates against PIT. Even analytically the Caps were unlucky in the 1st round, they had a 98.73PDO yet won and PIT had a 103.21PDO (lucky). Get your four leaf clovers ready!

5) PIT did beat CBJ but didn’t look pretty doing it. Here’s a couple tweets by Natural Stat Trick (who everyone should follow).

Basically the Caps ended their season very well and PIT not so much. Then in PITs series against CBJ their underlying numbers were not good. So against a mediocre team like CBJ the Penguins didn’t do too hot. Here’s are some numbers showing the Caps and Pens opening series stats:

Caps: 51.58CF% 50.65xGF% 52.73SCF% 98.73PDO

Pens: 46.97CF% 51.08xGF% 54.98SCF% 103.21PDO

Pens possession numbers were terrible, but they do have a slight edge in more dangerous scoring chances, which Caps need to try to suffocate. That high PDO for PIT can show why PIT took care of CBJ so quickly. Bobrovksy simply wasn’t good, he let in too many softies. Don’t expect the same from the Caps.

So there it is, all the reasons both fan bases should be worried. No doubt this will be the best series in the playoffs, nothing will be easy or given. The only given is there is no easy win for either side. Most likely all games will be decided by 1 goal. Get the barf bags ready and strap in because this will be a good one.