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The Stanley Cup Playoff finals are under way, and we can all chip in and hope that the rest of the series is long and exciting, and without what some hard-core hockey fans perceive as a pro-Pittsburgh bias among the officials.

With that being said, Game 1 was an incredible game that nobody could have predicted. If you’re among those tunnel-visioned sports fans who lose interest if their favorite team isn’t involved, you have my sympathy. This final series couldn’t be more competitive if that first game is any indication.

The Predators don’t have anywhere near the firepower of the vaunted defending champion Penguins, who not only have Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but also have Phil Kessel and let’s not overlook their two prominent Minnesota natives -- Matt Cullen, who is both 40 and ageless, and Jake Guentzel, who has always had a world of talent, we just weren’t sure it would manifest itself in playoff goals of this quality.

Nashville plays instead with great heart, teamwork, fantastic defense, and the goaltending of Pekka Rinne who has been simply the best throughout the Predators run. I also greatly admire Filip Forsberg, and that tremendous defensive corps.

So Game 1 starts in Pittsburgh, and the Predators hustle the Penguins from the start, firing 7 of the game’s first 9 shots. At 7:13 of the first period, the Predators work the puck to PK Subban, back at the point. He moves in and rifles a wrist shot past Matt Murray on the short side, and N ashville leads 1-0.

However, the play was challenged and one of the more distasteful rules wrinkles of the modern NHL came to pass. On the goal, Subban was on the right side and zipped a pass to the left boards to Forsberg, who timed his move perfectly, it appeared, dragging his back foot to stay onside as he reached into the offensive zone to catch the pass. Nobody called, or suggested, offside on the play. But then we watched a dozen video replays, and since it had not been called at the time, I saw absolutely no convincing evidence that the call should be overturned. But it was. The ref said the play was ruled offside, so the goal was disallowed.

The Predators seemed stunned. A few minutes later, a Penguin went down in the congestion in front, and the ref signalled a delayed penalty for interference, even though it looked more like a stumble than a foul. At the same moment, a badly timed cross-check from behind meant the ref called both penalties simultaneously for a Pittsburgh 5-on-3 power play.

Remind me again where we were again...Oh yes, Pittsburgh. Nashville did a great job of killing the 5-on-3 for more than a minute and a half, but Pittsburgh kept coming. Then Malkin scored at 15:32 for a 1-0 Pittsburgh lead. Another thing: Behind the net, a Nashville defenseman attempted to fire the puck around the right corner boards to clear it on the penalty kill, but Crosby put himself up against the end boards and partially blocked the attempt. At that point, the Nashville defenseman reacted in a flash and raced for the puck in the corner. Crosby threw his butt out and bumped him. Now, the same broadcast team who ripped Nashville for a stupid penalty praised Crosby for bumping the defenseman because it was a “continuous act.” Interesting. One man’s continuing act can be another’s interference penalty for impeding a player from getting to the puck.

At any rate, the Penguins followed up with a second goal when Conor Sheary got loose to convert a Chris Kunitz pass making it 2-0 barely a minute later. And at 19:43, Nick Bonino a lucky goal when he rushed up the right side, carrying the puck with only his right hand on the stick, and flipped a knee-high pass across the goal-mouth. It wasn’t heading for anyone, but it hit Pittsburgh defender Ryan Ellis on the left knee and the ricochet went into the net 17 seconds before the first period ended. Even though Nashville outshot Pittsburgh 10-8 in the period, Pittsburgh left the Predators stunned with a 3-0 lead.

The Predators came out storming for the second period, and nobody could have foreseen the turnaround. Ellis whistled in a power-play shot from the top of the left circle, and the Predators peppered Murray while completely stifling the Penguins, holding them without a single shot for the entire second period.

In the third, Colton Sissons scored for Nashville at 10:06 to cut it to 3-2, but Subban went off for delay of the game when his clearing try skimmed over the glass. He came out of the box at 13:24, and five seconds later, Johnny Gaudreau scored from the right slot after Austin Watson’s perfect pass out from behind and it was 3-3.

Pittsburgh still didn’t have a shot, and the game stayed 3-3 as it entered its final four minutes. It was then that the Minnesota connection struck. Cullen, working to dig the puck free on the right boards in the neutral zone, sent a neat feed to Guentzel, breaking hard up the right side. Guentzel got as far as the circle and sent a perfect shot that snared the upper right corner on Rinne for the tie-breaking goal at 16:43.

It was Guentzel’s NHL leading 10th goal of the playoffs, and it broke a streak of 37 minutes and 9 seconds without a shot for the Penguins. The tie-breaking goal became the game-winning goal when Bonino hit the empty net with 1:02 remaining, and the Penguins escaped in their own building with a 5-3 victory.

The Predators didn’t have a lot of shots, but they usually don’t. They had 26 shots, but they held the Penguins to a startling low of 12 shots for the entire game -- 8 in the first period and 4 in the third, including the open-net shot.

Game 2 was to be played Wednesday night, before the teams shift to Nashville, where no Stanley Cup final game has ever been played before.

I still believe this could be a long and very entertaining series. I just hope that the officials look back at their questionable overturning of the first Nashville goal and realize how they can influence the outcome of a game by taking the wind out of a team’s sails. We can only wonder how Game 1 would have come out had that goal stood and Nashville taken a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. But there is more to come.