PITTSBURGH -- How durable has Jordan Staal been? According to ESPN stats guru Vince Masi, Staal has an active streak of 302 consecutive regular-season games and has played 358 in a row counting the playoffs. In his four NHL seasons, Staal has never missed a game because of injury (he was a healthy scratch for one game during his rookie season), playing in 383 of a possible 384 games including playoffs.
"You never like to see anybody go off, period," Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said. "It's scary and you are always disappointed to see that, but that is the game we play and those are the things we work through."
Crosby was sporting some stitches on his chin, courtesy of a high stick, but he didn't miss much time getting back in action.
"Yeah, we had two TV timeouts, and I think I was gone maybe five minutes on the clock," Crosby said. "Give some credit to those guys [the team's medical staff], they were doing a good job. I think there were two of them."
How many stitches?
"I have no idea."
For the record, Crosby had two assists on the night and now has at least two points in six of seven playoff outings and leads all players with 16 points.
The Markov factor
How much will the Montreal Canadiens miss Andrei Markov? He may not have been at the top of his game against Washington, but the defenseman did lead Montreal in average ice time at 26:26 a night and he has been a magnet for wins this season. (He left Game 1 with a lower-body injury.)When Markov was out this season with a sliced tendon in his foot from Oct. 2-Dec. 18, the Canadiens were 14-18-3 with a 2.78 goals-against average and scored 2.30 goals per game. After his return, the Canadiens were 24-15-7 with a 2.47 GAA and scored 2.7 goals.
Last words from Game 1
• How much does Habs coach Jacques Martin think of rookie P.K. Subban? When Markov was lost for the night, Subban spent a lot of the balance of the evening playing with Marc-Andre Bergeron, easily the worst of the Habs' defensemen.• And this courtesy of our good friends at Elias Sports Bureau: The last time the Canadiens allowed four power-play goals in a postseason game was April 2, 1964, in Game 4 of the conference semifinals against the Maple Leafs.
• And the last time a team got three power-play goals from defensemen in one postseason game was in 1994, when Dmitri Mironov scored twice and Dave Ellett added another for the Maple Leafs in a 4-3 loss to Vancouver in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.
