Period 1 goes to the Rangers

In their best first period of the series, the Rangers score the only goal to take a 1-0 lead on the caps at the first intermission.

The rangers came out flying in the opening minutes of the game. They weren't just controlling the puck, and keeping it away from the Caps, but they were also very physical, knocking the caps off the puck. 6 minutes into the game, the high scoring Caps still didn't have a shot on goal. (For a team that has averaged about 38 shots a game)

But the Caps did end up getting some quality chances, created by Ovechkin. Hank had to come up big on 3 saves in the first period, all on Ovechkin, and he did. Alexander the Great did set up Federov for a blast that got by a screened Hank, but the crossbar took care of that for us.

On offense the Rangers played a strong period, but still were unable to create too many chances. But in a very un-Ranger moment, Paul Mara pulled an ovechkin and just fired a slap shot into traffic and at the net, it went off a capitals defenseman, and passed the rookie Varlamov. This broke a 120+ minute drought against the rookie goalie, huge lift for the Rangers.

In their best first period of the series, Rangers out shot the Caps 11-9. But they have to stay out of the box. Took two penalties, but were able to kill off both, drawing penalties at the end of each kill to end the Capital powerplay.