Minnesota’s victory comes at a price

When the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins met in the second round of the playoffs last year, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were held to only four combined points. That should be good enough to win, and yet it wasn’t for the Caps who had no answer for Pittsburgh’s scoring depth. This year, Washington expects things to be different. Why? Because of Lars Eller. The Caps will feature other new faces as well including Brett Connolly and Kevin Shattenkirk, but Connolly was a low-risk, high reward gamble and Shattenkirk was a deadline acquisition. Really the only move the Caps made to bolster their depth in direct response to last year’s series loss was Eller. Washington traded two second-round

The Avalanche have looked unstoppable of late, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.