As a person, it's really hard to dislike Carolina goaltender Justin Peters. Ever since he has been a part of the Hurricanes organization, Peters has worked hard at every level and has never complained about things like playing time or not getting enough opportunities in the NHL. There have been a few instances where Peters was passed over for the Canes back-up job when he had a solid chance of earning it, but instead of sulking Peters continued to work on his game in the AHL and seemed to improve there every season. This was especially true for this year.

After posting a .931 save percentage in seven NHL games last year, Peters signed a two-year contract with the Hurricanes and it looked like he was going to battle Brian Boucher for the Hurricanes back-up spot. Had it just been Boucher he was competing with, Peters would have had a great shot of being in the NHL to start the year, and then Dan Ellis came along. Peters and Ellis spent the NHL lockout sharing the starting job for Carolina's AHL affiliate in Charlotte and both were invited to training camp once the NHL resumed. Boucher ended up being traded and Ellis beat out Peters for the starting job. Some players would be discouraged by this, but Peters seemed to be more motivated in the AHL, posting a .921 save percentage and earning a spot on the AHL's All-Star team.

While it was nice to Peters showing progress at the lower levels, there has been a reason why he had played only 28 NHL games despite being with the Hurricanes organization for eight years. Part of that is because goalies in general take a long time to develop, but another reason is because Peters just hasn't been that good in the NHL. Prior to last season, Peters' performance with the Hurricanes was less than impressive and he was only able to give the Canes replacement level goaltending, at the very most. Even when you factor in his .931 save percentage last season, Peters was unproven as an NHL goaltender and this is still true after this year.

The original plan for Peters was to keep him in Charlotte for this year until the one-way part of his contract kicked in and then he would hopefully take over as the back-up next season. An injury to Cam Ward put a cog into this plan and he found himself splitting the starting duty with Ellis for the second half of the season. Initially, this wasn't such a bad thing because Peters is 26 and has been in the AHL for six years now. If there was a time for him to make the jump to the NHL, this was it and he wasn't able to do that. 

Many fans and writers pointed to goaltending and Ward's injury as to what crippled the Hurricanes this season and the play of Peters was one of the reasons why this ended up being an issue. With how Ward was playing this year and the Hurricanes being a stronger even strength club than in year's past, all Peters and Ellis had to do was give the Canes above-average goaltending for them to stay in the hunt. Ellis managed to do this for most of his starts while Peters, unfortunately, did not.

I think Peters' strong work ethic will land him an NHL job somewhere down the line but with him being on a one-way deal next year and the Canes needing a back-up goalie now, it's tough to see him in Carolina's future plans. After the jump, we'll look at why this is so and what went wrong for Peters in this past season.

The Hurricanes got kind of lucky with Dan Ellis falling into their laps at the beginning of the year. They were planning on entering the season with Justin Peters as their back-up, but the NHL lockout caused a few players to find work in other leagues and it led to Ellis signing a professional tryout contract with the Charlotte Checkers, Carolina's AHL affiliate. Ellis put up some very impressive numbers in Charlotte while splitting the starting job with Justin Peters there and he eventually won Carolina's back-up job in training camp once the NHL season resumed.

Goaltending was somewhat of a hot button issue for the Hurricanes this year. After Cam Ward got off to a rocky start, the team was able to turn to Ellis to provide a few solid appearances in relief of him. Ellis allowed only seven goals on 122 shots in his first six games with the Canes and around that time, he was praised as the back-up that this team has needed for years. Some fans were even calling for Ellis to get more starts while Ward went through his struggles. After Ward suffered what turned out to be a season-ending injury, Charlotte's initial starting tandem of Ellis & Peters became Carolina's goaltending options and the results were not great.

Ellis finished the year with a save percentage of .906 and a record of 6-8-2, with seven of those losses coming after Ward's injury. Keeping Ellis around for another year appeared to be a slam dunk decision after how well he played as a back-up, but his numbers down the stretch is having some fans second guess whether or not the Hurricanes should re-sign him. Now a lot of people are questioning whether or not Ellis can handle a 20-25 game workload in a full-season and that he is an unreliable option should Ward suffer another injury. 

Seeing how Ellis had a save percentage of .897 after taking over for Ward and had three games where he failed to stop 85% of the shots he faced, it's easy to see why there is some concern about Ellis heading into next year. However, before anyone jumps to the conclusion that Ellis is "washed up," let's remember that he suffered a pretty ugly injury at the end of the Hurricanes/Devils game on March 22, where he cut his leg open with one of his own skate blades while making a desperation save. Prior to that injury, Ellis had a save percentage of .918 over 12 games which is very solid for a back-up. After the injury, his save percentage was .898 over seven games and he had three "blow-ups" in that stretch. It might be easy to point to Ellis' late-season struggle as evidence that he can't handle a starter's workload, but it seems more likely that the injury affected his play late in the year and he might have been rushed back from it.

No matter what the case is, the Hurricanes need to make a decision regarding their back-up goaltender and bringing back Ellis for another year is one of their options. It certainly looks to be a safer option than giving the back-up job to Peters or finding another goaltender through free agency. With the goalie market being the way it is and the Canes having limited cap space, it's not going to be an easy decision for the Canes. Looking back at the season Ellis had with the Canes, he made a decent case to be the back-up here for at least another season.

Ask anyone what the "turning point" of the season was for Carolina and I would bet money that at least seven out of ten people will say that their playoff hopes were doomed once goaltender Cam Ward got hurt. The Canes went 7-17-3 with him out of the lineup and were on the losing end of a lot of blowouts down the stretch, so it's easy to jump to this conclusion. While I don't doubt that having Ward in the lineup would have helped stopped the bleeding a little, his injury wasn't the sole reason the Hurricanes season went down the toilet in the second half. 

Those who have been saying that "the losing streak would have never happened without Ward" are ignoring a few things. First of all, Dan Ellis gave the Canes very solid goaltending before he suffered an injury and rushed himself back from it. Secondly, the Hurricanes could not buy a goal to save their lives during the latter half of the season. They scored more than three goals in only one of their final 20 games and were held to two or fewer goals in nine of those games. Finally, and most importantly, Ward himself was not spectacular when he was healthy. 

Ward is a very good goalie and having him instead of Peters down the stretch may have earned the Hurricanes a couple wins, but saying that his injury alone is what ruined Carolina's season is lazy and not looking at all of the details. As a team, the Hurricanes were bad in their last 20 games and unless Ward could channel his inner Tuukka Rask, it's likely that they would have finished outside of the playoffs even if he was healthy. Many have said that Ward would have given the team more confidence or "momentum" by making a few big saves but the facts are that the Canes were a terrible team at preventing shots on goal last year and had trouble scoring in addition to that. Unless you have an elite netminder, you aren't going to make the post-season with that combination and Ward's performance was not elite this year.

Now that we have that cleared up, let's take a closer look at the year that was for Carolina's franchise goaltender and compare his performance to Carolina's other goaltenders.

An ongoing complaint about the Hurricanes this year was that they weren't a tough team and they didn't have enough "gritty" type players. Tim Wallace was an exception, though. Signed to a one-year, two-way deal last off-season, Wallace was brought in to give the Hurricanes somewhat of a physical presence and if he couldn't make the team, they at least had a proven AHL forward their disposal to help the Checkers. Since earning a spot on Carolina's fourth line is fairly easy to accomplish, it was a given that Wallace would get his chance eventually and he ended up spending a little over half of the season in the NHL.

With the Hurricanes, Wallace made an impact and did something to stand out just about every game. Whenever I saw someone on Carolina ram into an opposing player my first thought was always "Yep, that was probably Wallace" and most of the time I was right. Wallace was second on the team in hits despite playing only 28 games and he was usually one of Kirk Muller's "go-to guys" if the team needed an "energy shift." There is some debate about how critical physical players are in the NHL, but it's hard to deny that Wallace added that element to the Canes this year. Being a physical player will only get you so far if you can't contribute in other areas, though.

As much as I liked Wallace's tendency to hit anything that moves, there was a reason why he has spent most of his career in the AHL. Whether he was with the Penguins, Islanders or Lightning, it was hard for these teams to consistently put Wallace into the lineup because he didn't bring a whole lot to the table. While it's hard not to love Wallace's effort, it's also hard to play him over more skilled options and his prior teams were in that position.

Was that any different this year? Somewhat. As a fourth liner on the Hurricanes, Wallace didn't need to be a skilled player to get a jersey on most nights, but he ended up being sent down to Charlotte a few times because the Hurricanes had better players who they could play over him. Wallace may have given the Hurricanes a physical element but outside of that, his contributions were miniscule and replaceable.

Despite throwing 54 on Boston's goal, 29 of them being scoring chances, the Penguins could only get one past goaltender Tuukka Rask last night and that predictably was not enough to win them the game as the Bruins defeated them 2-1 in overtime. The loss puts Pittsburgh in a 3-0 hole and on the brink of elimination in the series. The Pens have no one but themselves to blame for being in this situation since their play in Games 1 & 2 was sub-bar but last night was a game that they played well enough to win. They outplayed the Bruins by a pretty significant margin and looked like a much better team compared to the first two games. The only problem was that they just couldn't finish and you can point to Rask & some bad puck luck (i.e. goal posts) as the reason for that. 

It seemed like a black cloud was hanging over the Penguins during last night's game because no matter how much offense they created, they could not get anything past Rask and it resulted in the game going to double overtime. In overtime, the team that makes the first mistake is usually the one that loses but both Rask and Vokoun were able to keep their teams in this one for awhile. The Bruins were the team who eventually got the reward, though as Patrice Bergeron got the inside edge on Pittsburgh defenseman Brooks Orpik and it allowed him to tip in a centering pass from Brad Marchand to put the Bruins one game away from the Stanley Cup Finals.

Had this been Game 1 or Game 2, I would say that the Penguins would still be in this, but I can really see this ending in a sweep because of how deflating this loss is for Pittsburgh. This was a game that they played well enough to win and now that they let it slip out of their hands, the room for error is very slim. It's really hard for me to see Pittsburgh pulling off a comeback when you take that and their poor play in the first two games into consideration. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems very unlikely at this point even though they looked like a better team in Game 3.

When the Hurricanes signed Alexander Semin to a one-year deal, many fans weren't sure how to feel about it. On one hand, the Hurricanes filled a huge void in their top-six by adding one of the NHL's best goal-scorers and a player who has consistently produced at a first-line rate for most of his career. That alone should have been enough to get fans on board, but there were some red flags surrounding the Russian superstar. Despite being a legitimate first line player, he went until almost August without being signed and supposedly his "attitude" scared off a lot of teams from signing him.

Even Jim Rutherford himself stated that he was reluctant to sign a player like Semin to a long-term deal because "he has heard all of the stories about him." One has to assume he was referring to Semin's reputation as a "lazy" and "selfish" player, which has been a popular narrative among Washington's fanbase and the Canadian media for years now. While I don't expect either of those two parties to know a damn thing about what goes on in the locker room and a player's personal lives, the fact that some of Semin's former teammates have called him out might have been enough to scare away GM's looking to sign him. 

Intangibles aside, Semin has been a hell of a player since he entered the league and it was a good thing the Hurricanes decided to take a chance on him because Semin proved to be the best winger this team has had in years. Whether you want to chalk it up to him benefiting from a change of scenery or getting to play with stronger linemates, Semin thrived in Carolina and was a huge bright spot in a forgettable year for the Hurricanes. This was exactly the type of player the Canes hoped they would get when they signed him and it was enough for Rutherford to sign Semin long-term on a five-year deal worth $35 mil.

With that contract, there are going to be high expectations for Semin over the next five years and if he continues to produce at this level, there won't be much of an issue. Even with the high expectations, Semin seems to like playing in Carolina and the fanbase appreciates him, so having him around a few more years works out well for both parties. Having an elite offensive player like him at your disposal is never a bad thing, but what are the chances of semin carrying over his point-per-game production into next year and the rest of his contract? We'll discuss that after the jump.

It's no secret that defense has been a huge problem for Carolina over the last couple of seasons. They may have been a better team this year in terms of controlling possession at even strength, but they were still near the bottom of the league at preventing shots and killing penalties. Part of the problem relates to Kirk Muller's system because the Hurricanes played a very high-risk style this year with a lot of emphasis placed on aggressive forechecking and defensemen pinching to keep the puck in the offensive zone. However, the execution was just as big of an issue because while the Hurricanes managed to get a lot of shots on goal, they also gave up a lot at the other end and most of them were quality chances. 

The Hurricanes were constructed to be a team that relies on their offense to win games rather than shutting down their opponents and while that kind of system can work, it can also go terribly wrong if you go through a dry spell in scoring or don't have the right players. Both of these were a problem for the Canes last year as they had basically no secondary scoring, their second line had trouble finding the back of the net and their defense was prone to a lot of screw-ups on a nightly basis. 

It's my opinion that there is a lot for the Hurricanes to worry about on the goal-scoring front because I see both Jordan Staal and Jeff Skinner having better offensive seasons next year, but there is a lot that can be improved with their defense corps. Defensive responsibility extends to the entire team and not just the defense corps, but there were a lot of flaws with how the Canes D was assembled last season. The first thing that a lot of people are going to point to is that they had "too many" puck-movers and not enough "stay-at-home" players on their blue-line, but having a lot of players capable of moving the puck is not always a bad thing. 

Something that gets overlooked in today's NHL is that you need to be able to possess the puck well and control territorial play to succeed and having puck-moving defensemen can help teams accomplish this. It's why a defenseman who can handle the puck well and make good first passes is probably more valuable than one whose primary value is blocking shots and delivering big hits. The former player is going to have the puck more often and spend less than 50% of his ice time in his own zone, which makes him more beneficial to have around than someone who is useless with the puck. The Chicago Blackhawks built a successful defense around this strategy and the Hurricanes tried to do the same last year.

The problem wasn't that they had too many puck-movers and not enough "shutdown" defensemen, though. It was more of that they didn't have enough guys who were capable of playing top-four minutes. Justin Faulk, Joni Pitkanen and Tim Gleason were the only players capable of this, as I outlined in my review of Carolina's defense corps. The rest were borderline top-four guys who could fill in for a few games if needed, but not permanent solutions. This best describes guys like Joe Corvo, Jay Harrison and Jamie McBain, who are all good defensemen but would be 5-7 guys on a contending team. Each of them had to play in the top-four at some point with Carolina and neither of them had the speed, mobility or endurance to do it on a game-by-game basis.

This is why the main priority for the Hurricanes this summer is going to be signing a top-four defenseman but it doesn't necessarily have to be strictly a stay-at-home player because there are a lot of "shutdown defensemen" who are nothing more than third-pairing defensemen on contending teams. Getting someone to help the PK would definitely fill the Canes needs, but they should not rule out a two-way defenseman because one could be valuable if he's available at a decent cost. Are there any players like this available through free agency, though? After the jump, we'll look at what the Hurricanes options if they choose to go this route.

The Bruins took a 2-0 series lead over the Penguins by coasting their way to a 6-1 win on Monday night. It was one of those games where the underlying numbers don't matter as much because the game was pretty much over after the first period. Boston scored on their first scoring chance of the game and ended up leading 4-1 after 20 minutes thanks to some horrific defensive play and sub-par goaltending from the Penguins. After that, the Bruins focused on protecting their lead rather than pouring it on and it really frustrated the Pens, as they had a lot of issues with getting past Boston's defensive shell. Claude Julien tends to play a trap when his team has a lead and that's exactly what we saw tonight.

With the Bruins sitting back and leading by three or more goals for 40+ minutes, the final numbers from this game were very misleading. The Penguins actually outchanced the Bruins 15-13 overall and 12-11 at even strength while having a sizable territorial advantage on top of that. However, the Pens advantage in scoring chances becomes less meaningful when you take into consideration that they recorded over half of them in the third period when the game was basically out of reach. Boston had some defensive lapses and Rask made a few very good saves, but the Pens barely threatened at all when the score was reasonably close. Pittsburgh played an awful first period and it allowed Boston to basically run away and coast their way to a 2-0 series lead.

Whether it was their strong power play, goal-scoring talent or ability to capitalize on other team's mistakes, Pittsburgh has been able to bail themselves out of a lot of tough situations this post-season. That has come to a halt these last two games and it doesn't surprise me. Boston has better goaltending than the Islanders, so Pittsburgh is going to have trouble playing from behind and their own goalies are less likely to cover up their team's mistakes because the Bruins have a more dangerous lineup than the Senators. It all equates to the Penguins struggling through this series unless their team's play improves.

Pittsburgh has the ability to at least match Boston, if not beat them, at even strength so the situation isn't hopeless but it's getting ugly fast.

For the past two years, Justin Faulk has been a huge bright spot on what is mostly a bad defense corps. He made a huge impression on the Hurricanes fanbase last season after making the team out of training camp and won even more people over around late-November when he was permanent called up to the team. It's rare for a defenseman to become a full-time NHL-er before his 20th birthday, so Faulk being able to stick with the Hurricanes for 66 games last year was impressive enough, but this is just scratching the surface.

Not only was Faulk on the big club full-time, he also led all Carolina defensemen in time on ice per game, played on both special teams units and was often matched up against some of the opposition's better forwards. The national eye may have not given him a lot of attention, but Carolina fans knew they had something special in Faulk. After such a fantastic rookie season, the thought on everyone's minds was what will Faulk do next and will he improve or fall victim to the dreaded "sophomore slump?"

To some people, Faulk can do no wrong, but there were some areas he struggled in last season. As with any young defenseman, he was prone to mistakes and was giving up more chances than he was producing. He also had some issues with his two-way game, particularly with defending in transition and it resulted in him being on the ice for a lot of scoring chances against. Faulk impressed in a lot of ways, but there were plenty of things for him to improve on and playing for Team USA in the World Championships after the season and for the Charlotte Checkers during the lockout could help him fine tune his game before the NHL got back into action.

Even with those flaws, Faulk showed a lot of poise in his rookie season and did not look overwhelmed despite being a teenager playing a role that veterans are often assigned to. This along with Faulk's terrific special teams play showed that the Hurricanes had themselves a very good defensemen who was only in the beginning stages of his NHL career. The question was how good could Faulk be in his career and how long would it take for him to get to that level? His performance this year helped answered both of those questions.

If there is such a thing as a "sophomore slump," the Hurricanes didn't see it from Faulk this year because he improved on his rookie season in just about every way imaginable and emerged as a top-pairing defenseman. All before his 21st birthday too.

If you're wondering why I did not have any scoring chances posted from the last round, it's a long story. I'll just say that I've had a limited amount of spare time the last few weeks and was not able to post any analysis of the second round. Despite that minor setback, I should be back in full force for the Conference Finals and will provide a closer look at the underlying stats from every game. Robert from the Kings SB Nation Blog, Jewels From the Crown will be taking care of the Western Conference matchup, so I will be predominately focus on the Eastern Conference Final between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins.

As some of you might remember, I tracked the scoring chances from the Pens first round matchup against the Islanders and for the majority of that series, they were outplayed at even strength. One of the main reasons why they were able to advance past New York in six games is because the Islanders got a tragic performance out of goaltender Evgeni Nabokov, but another big reason was the Penguins deceisviely winning the special teams battle. In that series alone, the Pens scored seven goals with the man advantage and their power play was clicking at almost 30% heading into last night's game. In my preview of this series, I mentioned that while the Bruins might be a superior even strength team, they were going to have to slow down this Penguins power play to have a chance and last night, they were able to do just that. Keep in mind that "slow down" and "shut down" are two different things and what the Bruins did to the Pens power play last night falls under the former category.

Boston was able to kill off all four of Pittsburgh's power plays, but a large part of that was due to the play of goaltender Tuukka Rask, who stopped all eight of Pittsburgh's power play scoring chances. Since the Bruins were able to survive that, they could focus more on dictating the play at even strength and they were able to do just that, especially in the third period. The Bruins may have gotten outchanced 21-17 overall, but they had a 14-12 edge at even strength and the fact that they were able to blank the Pens on the power play ended up being one of the key deciding factors in this game. 

After the jump, we'll take a closer look at what went right for the Bruins in their 3-0 win as well as what went wrong for the Penguins. 

Overall

Note: Pittsburgh's chances are in black & the Bruins chances are in yellow.

This had the potential to turn into a special teams battle with each team spending a combined 16 minutes on the power play, but the Penguins not converting on any of their power play chances allowed the Bruins to win this game at even strength, which is exactly what they did. All three goals of their goals came during five-on-five play and they were able to shut down the Penguins in the third period by allowing only one scoring chance in the final 10 minutes of the game.

The Bruins had the edge in scoring chances, but I think this game was a little more even than the final score indicates. Rask was able to bail his team out of a few tough situations, especially early in the game and the Penguins also failed to capitalize on many of the Bruins mistakes. At the other end, Tomas Vokoun let in a pretty soft goal to David Krejci on the Bruins first scoring chance of the game and the Pens were forced to climb an uphill battle after that despite having a pretty big advantage in scoring chances up until that point. I don't want to say that Rask "stole" this win for the Bruins since they outchance Pittsburgh at even strength & gave him three goals in support, but I'm not sure if the Bruins win this game if Rask hadn't played as well as he did in the first two periods. He was simply outstanding and gave Boston some breathing room before they took over.

As for Pittsburgh's goalie situation, I wouldn't freak out too much over Vokoun's performance. Werethe first two goals he let in weak? Absolutely. Did Pittsburgh get out-goaltended? Yes, but he wasn't the main reason the Penguins lost this game and the Pens are going to be in trouble if they rely on goaltending to win this series. Instead of pointing fingers at Vokoun, there are a lot of of other players who could share the blame for this loss.

Penguins Individual Scoring Chances

Best EV Forward: Tyler Kennedy +5

Worst EV Forward: Sidney Crosby -4

Best EV Defenseman: Douglas Murray +3

Worst EV Defenseman: Paul Martin -5

The Penguins top guns all performed well on the power play, but they were all a disaster at even strength when it came to defensive play. I thought Crosby, Malkin, Neal and Kunitz were good when it came to creating chances both at even strenght and on the power play, and they were. The only problem was they gave up just as much, if not more, in their own zone during five-on-five play. With the talent this team has, it's generally not a good sign when third and fourth liners are the only players in the black.

As bad as the forwards were at even strength, the defense might have been worse and the Penguins blue-liners were also making some horrific mistakes both with and without the puck. The Bruins second goal came immediately after a bad defensive zone turnover by Mark Eaton and Kris Letang trying to play the rebound like an outfielder did'n't help matters. These two had a rough game all around, as did Paul Martin, who was destroyed by the Krejci line. I would say that Pittsburgh should consider changing up their defense corps, but Bylsma did shake things up towards the end of the game and the Penguins worst defensive play came when they had a new defense pairing on the ice.

About eight minutes into the third period, Bylsma had a pairing of Kris Letang and Matt Niskanen on the ice against a broken line combination of the Bruins featuring teir two first line wingers with Gregory Campbell centering them. Niskanen had just turned the puck over in the neutral zone and the Bruins went ther way to create a quick shot in transition. This shot ended up bouncing off Niskanen and going to the corner to the left of the goaltender and was retrieved by Campbell. Both Penguin defensemen along with the low forward, Evgeni Malkin, decided to follow Campbell & the puck, which resulted in this Kodak moment right here.

PIttsburgh wasn't aggressive enough on the puck and it allowed Campbell to make a pass to Lucic at the side of the net for a scoring chance and Nathan Horton was able to tap in the rebound for an easy goal. Mental mistakes like this genreally burn teams late in games and this is what happened to the Penguins here. A lot of the errors I saw on Pittsburgh's side were related to mental mistakes rather than skill, so I don't think this is anything they can't shake off and overcome. The Bruins played a very strong game, though and had a lot of standouts at even strength.

Bruins Individual Scoring Chances

Best EV Forward: Brad Marchand +5

Worst EV Forward: Tyler Seguin -5

Best EV Defenseman: Dennis Seidenberg +4

Worst EV Defenseman: Torey Krug -3

While Pittsburgh's top-six struggled to get a lot going at even strength, Boston's put on a clinic. Their first line technically produced all three goals with Krejci scoring a pair, Bergeron's line dominated Crosby's and they all played terrific defensively on top of that. Bergeron's line surrendered only one scoring chance the entire game and saw some terrific play out of Jaromir Jagr, who had four total scoring chances. It's almost a shame that he doesn't have a goal because he looked like one of Boston's best players last night and was one of their most active offensively. I think most know that he is playing well, though despite not getting rewarded for it. Really, just about everyone except for Boston's third line played well. The Seguin-Kelly-Peverley trio were inexplicably terrible defensively but other than that, it was nearly a flawless game at even strength for the B's forwards.

The Bruins defense corps also did their job in limiting Pittsburgh's top forwards with Chara & Seidenberg having a very strong game in particular. Their defensive game was not the best and they were a tad carless with the puck but both came away net positives by a pretty big margin in the end. Andrew Ference also had a solid game in his return to the lineup, playing very well against Pittsburgh's first line.

The only area I would be concerned about for the Bruins is the penalty kill, as their second unit got absolutely lit up. The Penguins are not going to come away empty handed the next time if the Bruins keep allowing so many chances on the PK and they are somewhat lucky they managed to come out of those stretches without allowing a goal. 

Dan Bylsma seemed content with letting Crosby play against the Bergeron line and having Malkin face-off against Krejci for this game, but I could easily see this changing for Game 2. After how well Bergeron's line played last night and how poor the Kelly line did, it wouldn't shock me if Bylsma tries to get Crosby or Malkin out against that trio while he has the last change. How good was Bergeron against Crosby, though? At even strength, it's hard to do a better job of containing a star player.

Head to Head at Five-on-Five

The Bruins top-six beat Pittsburgh's to a pulp at even strength and Chara/Seidenberg also took care of Crosby's line. I could see Bylsma switching up the matchups to get Crosby or Malkin out against Boston's third line more often because they did not play well and it might be wise to keep one of these two away from Bergeron. I'm not sure what he can do to keep them away from Chara since Julien usually does a good job of keeping him out there against both first and second lines. Another thing Bylsma should consider is making sure Eaton doesn't see the ice against the Krejci line. The entire defense played poorly against them, but Eaton in particular was crushed and I have to think that one of Niskanen or Murray would be a better option to pair with Letang.