Rich Lam
One site that I love to visit this time of year is whowins.com, which basically is a historical database of what's happened in every seven game series in pro sports history.
One of the things it's most useful for is breaking down how valuable certain games are in terms of what's happened in the past. There are four Game 2s tonight and four more tomorrow, so using WhoWins, here are a few numbers of note about winning Game 2 of a seven-game series in the NHL.
When a team leads 1-0 in a series, their all-time record in that series is 383-178 (.683).
When a team leads 2-0 in a series, that jumps to 266-41 (.866).
If you factor in whether it's a home or road team that has won first, the story is slightly different.
Take a series where the home team has won Game 1 (as is the case in five of the current series). When a team leads 1-0 after winning Game 1 at home, their record in Game 2 (also at home) is 236-128 (.648). Their record in the series is 277-87 (.761).
With a 2-0 series lead, after winning both games at home, their series record is terrific: 212-24 (.898).
Road teams that have gone up 1-0 have a much worse record in Game 2 at just 71-126 (.360) and in the series at 106-91 (.538). But if the road team wins the first two games, that series record jumps up to 54-17 (.761).
So, for the home teams tonight (Vancouver, Pittsburgh and Washington), history is really on their side if they win tonight, with 90 per cent of teams going on to win the series in that situation. For the road team (Nashville), they'll have a slightly less overwhelming chance of moving on.
For the teams currently down 1-0 (Chicago, Tampa, New York and Anaheim), it goes without saying they're going to want to win tonight.