Pittsburgh at Washington

It all comes down to one game for the Capitals and the Penguins, who have locked up in a dead heat at three games apiece through six. All you have to do is look at where both these teams came from to decide who the better team is right now. The Caps back in late February were -203 at home vs the Penguins, a far cry from the -130 here for game seven. There is a reason for that. The Penguins have already won three games on the road in the playoffs, while the Caps have already lost three on home ice in the playoffs. The Caps have sandwiched a five game winning streak around a 2-6 mark before and after, and really have lost the home ice advantage they had early in the season when they started 18-2 and out-scored their opponent by a count of 75-39. What has happened since then does not look like the kind of numbers of a team ready to move onto the conference finals. The Caps have played about even, outscoring their opponents at home by a single goal at 88-87 and that includes many teams not even in the playoffs. The Caps are also playing their fourth game in six nights, where they have been just 5-11 in their last 16, while the Penguins playing the tough teams tough, at 19-9 in their last 28 vs a team with a winning record. This simply is not the same Capital team that took the ice through the first half of the season, and I look for the Penguins to win the deciding seventh game here.