History Tells Us....Win Game One

• Brandon Dubinsky scored the game winning goal as the New York Rangers stunned the Washington Capitals in game one. Dubinsky is Mr. Clutch. Of his 13 regular season goals, 7 were game winners. He easily had the best percentage of game winning goals of any NHL with a minimum of 10 goals scored
• Alex Ovechkin did not score a goal despite taking an amazing 13 shots on goal. That marks the most shots taken by Ovechkin in his career in a game that he did not score.
• The only other player in NHL history to have that many shots in a playoff game without scoring a goal was Sergei Fedorov, now a teammate of Ovechkin's. Fedorov's achievement came in game two of the 1998 Stanley Cup Finals, an overtime game against Washington.
• Viktor Kozlov scored a goal for the Caps last night. It was the first career playoff goal for the 13 year NHL veteran. He's played in 897 regular season games and 22 playoff contests, but had never scored a playoff goal.
  
• The Flyers dropped game one to Pittsburgh last night. The Flyers have now dropped the opening game in six straight playoff series. Only the Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotes franchise has had a longer streak, with seven straight series opening with a loss.
• Don't fret Flyers fans. The Flyers came back twice in 2008 from 1-0 series deficits to win the series. They beat Washington and Montreal last year.
• Winning game one is pretty important however, especially if you can do it on the road. Teams that do that have a 102-86 all time record in best of seven game series. Interestingly, those same road teams are likely to drop game 2, with a 68-120 record in game 2.
  
• If the road team goes up 2-0, their series record improves to 52-16.
• The Vancouver Canucks staved off the St. Louis Blues in game one, winning 2-1. Good news and bad news for you Blues fans. Vancouver and St. Louis have only met twice in NHL playoffs history, with both series were decided in the seventh game. Bad news: Vancouver won both previous series.