1. Match Point
Carolina’s top line of Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Jackson Blake wasn’t on the ice for any of the goals in Game 1, but they put on about as dominating an offensive display as you’ll see without finding the back of the net, usually with Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns behind them and often against Washington’s second line of Pierre-Luc Dubois, Tom Wilson and Connor McMichael and the Caps’ top-four defensemen:
Here, via NST, is Svechnikov against those seven Caps at fives, the septet he faced most often (and don’t forget, Aho took Dubois’ lunch money in the dot in the defensive zone):
Ostensibly that was Spencer Carbery’s preferred matchup (Nic Dowd was only on the ice for 2:10 against Aho, Dylan Strome 2:01 and Lars Eller 1:48, while Dubois played 10:33 against the Finn at fives), which is concerning, but… not entirely unfamiliar.