Three successful penalty kills kept the Philadelphia Flyers off the scoreboard, and  John Carlson scored on the power play and the Capitals locked down defensively to shut out the Flyers 2-0 Thursday night in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.

Braden Holtby stopped all 19 shots he faced for his third career shutout in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Just 19 seconds after Flyers defenseman Brandon Manning went to the box for sending the puck over the glass, Carlson's shot from the point deflected off penalty killer Chris Vandevelde and bounced in past Steve Mason at 16:21 of the second.

Mason was phenomenal in stopping 29 of the 31 shots he faced, but what Backstrom called a ''weird shot'' from Carlson turned out to be the game-winner.

Capitals F T.J. Oshie was in the lineup after leaving practice Wednesday with an undisclosed injury.