Dose: Halted by Holtby

Heading into the second round, I mentioned that Playoff Doses might get a little skinnier going forward.

This is probably the prime example among prime examples, at least with eight teams still holding some hope - varying in degrees of believability as they may - of hoisting Lord Stanley’s Silver Chalice of Victory/Holder of Fruit Loops and Booze. It’s not just that there was only one game on Monday; it’s also that there was also only a single tally.

Here’s hoping you get some useful morsels of hockey goodness out of this, even if there isn’t a TON to work with.

There is one interesting bit of side news, though. The New Jersey Devils named Ray Shero there new GM, placing noted despot Lou Lamoriello in the position of president (they probably wanted to leave out “emperor,” which was always the title I assumed he really had … that or “arch-tyrant”). Anyway, it’s a solid fit, as Shero loves drafting defensemen (sometimes to useful effect) and the Devils are the leading killers of flow and offense in all the NHL land, at least from a bigger-picture standpoint.

It might not be the most exciting proposition, yet it’s sensible enough.

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CAPITALS 1, RANGERS 0

-- It doesn't take an expert to realize that Braden Holtby was the big star of this game, making 30 saves for his first shutout of the 2015 postseason and his second playoff goose egg overall. Interestingly enough, Holtby's other playoff shutout came against the Rangers on May 4, only in 2013.

Honestly, the Rangers should just avoid playoff games on May 4, as they were blanked by Marc-Andre Fleury on that day in 2014, too.

-- Andre Burakovsky assisted on Jay Beagle's inventive game-winner, giving him his first career playoff point in his seventh postseason game (all in 2015). The 20-year-old isn't getting a ton of ice time and isn't really creating a bunch of chances, but perhaps slow and steady will win that race.

-- Poor Rick Nash. His playoff goal production remains jarringly bad. He was unable to score a goal in this one despite seven SOG, dropping his shooting percentage to 3.1 (one goal on 32 SOG), which remarkably represents a lower playoff shooting percentage than his terrible career average of 3.5.

Overall, Nash has six goals and 17 assists for 23 points in 49 career playoff games. Nash's only comparable regular season GP-wise was when he played 44 games in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign; he scored 21 goals in that run.

Nash had 42 goals and 69 points in 79 games during the 2014-15 regular season, in case you forgot.

-- Do the Rangers just need to open things up a bit more, or are they just not getting much puck luck? All four of their wins against Pittsburgh came via 2-1 scores (two in OT). In three games in this series, they've only generated four goals and only allowed five. With a .940 save percentage in the postseason so far, it's not exactly as if Henrik Lundqvist is failing (as I inexplicably feared).

-- Circling back to that previous question, the Rangers were strong possession-wise, so it might just be a matter of hoping that they get more bounces going forward. Losing Game 1 in such stunning fashion could really be the difference-maker considering how close these two teams are.

-- Then again, for all the hand-wringing, a win in Game 4 would give the Rangers a clean slate. They could really use a big offensive outburst after playing grinding game after grinding game.

-- Chris Kreider made his presence felt yet again, firing five SOG and delivering six hits.

-- Busy night for Matt Niskanen: four SOG, three hits, seven blocked shots in 25:56 TOI, easily the most ice time of any Caps player. In fact, he topped all skaters with that. Maybe he's not too bad of a value, after all.

-- Seemed like a relatively quiet game from Alex Ovechkin (though he still got four SOG, five hits and two blocked shots), yet Washington won.

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