from Tom Gulitti of NHL.com,

Among the many lessons the Washington Capitals learned in their 6-4 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday was that playing against them is a lot different than watching them on video.

Now that they have a game under their belt, the Capitals believe they'll be better prepared to dictate their style of play in Game 2 of the best-of-7 series at T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, SN, TVAS).

"We're not as maybe familiar with Vegas," Washington coach Barry Trotz said Tuesday. "In terms of the information we gave the players and all that, they didn't do anything different. But you have to play against that type of opponent. Any opponent that you play very seldom you have to get a feel for."

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from Ron Kantowski of the Las Vegas Review-Journal,

Holtby posted consecutive shutouts in Games 6 and 7 of the Eastern Conference Final as the Caps rallied (again) to knock off Tampa Bay. But on Monday against the Knights, his impenetrable wall crumbled in the manner of one of our imploded hotel-casinos.

Knights’ counterpart Marc-Andre Fleury didn’t exactly uphold his or the building code either, even kicking a puck into his own net that gave the visitors a 4-3 lead early in the third period.

“They both could have been better, but at the same time nine goals against is not always an indication of how a goalie plays,” said Boucher, who is providing a national TV audience with insight from a netminder’s perspective as an NBC analyst. “Sometimes (a goalie’s performance) is dictated by what happens in front of you.”

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