Don’t panic, Capitals fans, but Nicklas Backstrom is out for Game 1

Nicklas Backstrom had to miss most of the third period in the Capitals’ Game 6 clincher against the Penguins. Now he’s going to miss Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Washington Capitals are entering their first Eastern Conference Final game in 20 years. As a reward for their effort, they get to face the Tampa Bay Lightning. Just like the Capitals, they have one of the most potent offenses in the game so the Caps will need all hands on deck.

Unfortunately for the Caps, it looks like they’re not going to — at least for Game 1. While winger Andre Burakovsky is back in the lineup, Nicklas Backstom was not on the ice for warmups and won’t play Friday night against the Lightning.

The Caps already have their hands full, and this isn’t ideal against a team that has guys like Steven Stamkos, Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov.

Backstrom is one of the leaders for the Caps on both ends of the ice. He almost never seems to be out of position, and he never puts the puck in harms way. Not only that but if you had to pick one center to run your power play, you’d most likely pick Backstrom.

Heading into Conference Finals Backstrom has 13 points including 10 assists and eight power play points. The numbers pretty much speak for themselves when you talk about Backstrom, and the Caps are sorely going to miss him for Game 1.

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It’ll be up to guys like Evgeny Kuznestov and Lars Eller to step their games up a little bit more in his absence. One thing to note is that Backstrom was listed as day-to-day heading into this game so it doesn’t look like the injury should sideline him for too long and the Caps will hopefully have him back for Game 2.

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