The Washington Capitals started their 14-game walk through
the toughest part of their schedule this month with a 4-2 win over the Boston
Bruins this afternoon at TD Garden in Boston.
The Caps, who will face these same Bruins twice more over their next 13
games, not to mention the Pittsburgh Penguins twice, the Philadelphia Flyers
twice, and take a trip to the west coast to visit Los Angeles, San Jose, and
Anaheim, scored early, scored late, and held off the Bruins to secure their
fourth straight win.
This game, however, might have turned on the basis of play
at the other end of the ice. In the game’s
seventh minute Jay Beagle was about to be sent to the penalty box for
committing a holding infraction on Milan Lucic.
Before play was whistled dead, though, Tom Wilson high-sticked Torey
Krug, and both Caps were sent to the penalty box, giving the Bruins a full two-minute
5-on-3 power play. In the power play
Boston managed only four shot attempts.
Two of them were blocked, one was a miss, and the fourth – a shot on
goal by Krug – was turned away by goalie Braden Hotby. The Caps killed off the two-man disadvantage
and kept themselves in the game.
The effort was not for naught, for in the final two minutes
of the first period the Bruins’ Chris Kelly was sent off for interference on
Jason Chimera. Less than half a minute
later, John Carlson teed up Alex Ovechkin for a one-timer from the left wing
circle, and Ovechkin beat goalie Tuukka Rask to the short side to give the Caps
a 1-0 lead at the first intermission.
Washington built its lead to 3-0 in the second period with a
pair of goals. The first came on
Ovechkin’s second power play goal of the game.
The play started with Braden Holtby sending the puck up the left wing
wall to Joel Ward at the red line. Ward
skated the puck into the Boston end and slid it to the middle where Marcus
Johansson was filling in. Johansson backhanded
a pass to Ovechkin in stride, and from the top of the left wing circle Ovechkin
one-timed a shot over Rask’s left shoulder and under the crossbar to make it
2-0.
The second Caps goal of the period came on an
uncharacteristic breakdown by the Bruins.
After the Bruns won a center ice faceoff, Johnny Boychuk tried to move
the puck across to his defensive partner Matt Bartkowski at the Boston blue
line. Joel Ward stepped up and deadened
the pass, picked up the puck, and split the two defenders to skate in alone on
Rask. Ward faked Rask to the ice, then
pulled the puck to his backhand, sliding the puck past Rask’s right skate to
make it 3-0.
Patrice Bergeron got one back for the Bruins just 41 seconds
after Ward’s goal. With Jason Chimera off
for a tripping call, Bergeron one-timed a pass from Dougie Hamilton from the
slot that beat Holtby, and it was 3-1.
Boston made it 3-2 late in the second period when the Caps got caught
almost doing the right thing. As Shawn
Thornton was winding up for a shot from the edge of the left wing circle,
Gregory Campbell was chugging down the middle toward the net. Mike Green tried to tie Campbell up, but in
doing so he redirected Thornton’s shot past Holtby, and the Caps were down to a
one-goal lead going into the third period.
In the third, Eric Fehr extended his curious mastery of
Tuukka Rask. With the Bruins trying to
establish control in the Caps’ zone, Fehr twice poked the puck out of the way
of Bruin sticks, the second of which cleared the zone. When Torey Krug tried to regain control, he
got tied up with Joel Ward’s stick and tumbled to the ice. It was the room Fehr needed to break free and
alone for a chance against Rask. From
the hash marks Fehr snapped a forehand past Rask’s left pad, and the Caps had
the final two-goal margin they would not give up.
Other stuff…
-- Sure, the pass from John Carlson to Alex Ovechkin was
deftly applied for a one-timer for the Caps’ first goal, but that play is not
possible without Nicklas Backstrom’s artful stick work and soft hands on the
right wing wall to open up a passing lane to Carlson to get the play going.
-- Ovechkin’s second goal was his 800th NHL
point. He is tied with Detroit’s Pavel
Datsyuk for 17th among active NHL players. No player since Ovechkin broke into the
league in 2005 has more points. Joe
Thornton has 755 points since 2005 for second place. Over that same period he has a whopping
103-goal lead, 412-309, over the second highest goal scorer, Ilya Kovalchuk.
-- Ovechkin was also a minus-1, making him minus-18 for the
season. In 24 “minus” games this season
he has goals of his own scored eight times (nine total goals).
-- Part of playing an effective road game is often
frustrating an opponent. Here is an
example of how the Caps did it this afternoon.
No Boston forward recorded a shot on goal until Dan Paille did it with
5:51 left in the first period.
-- Ward’s goal, his 18th, is a career high,
surpassing the 17 he had with Nashville in 2008-2009. It put him in the top-50 in the league in
goal scoring (tied with 12 other players).
His two points for the afternoon made it 35 for the season, tying his
career high in 2008-2009.
-- Eric Fehr now has four career goals against Boston. All of them have been scored against Tuukka
Rask.
-- Boston is not an especially adept penalty killing team,
given their place in the standings. We
noted that capitalizing on this would be a key to this game. The two power play goals scored by the Caps
was the first time the Bruins allowed two power play goals in a game since
January 14th against Toronto.
-- The power play loomed large in another respect. The Caps outshot the Bruins, 14-5, on their
respective power plays. On the other
hand, Boston won the even strength shot battle, 30-16. As a result, Boston kicked the Corsi out of
the Caps, winning that contest at 5-on-5 with a 66.7 percent Corsi-for, and in
5-on-5 close score situations with a 54.2 percent mark.
-- The four-game winning streak is the Caps longest since a
four-game streak to open the month of November.
Since the Caps had an eight-game losing streak (0-6-2) in January, they
are 7-2-1.
-- No Metropolitan Division team has more points earned
against the Atlantic Division than the Caps.
The win made the Caps 11-4-5 against the Atlantic this season, the 27
points earned being one more than the 26 earned by Pittsburgh (12-6-2).
-- Milan Lucic and Reilly Smith were tied for second in
goals for the Bruins entering the game.
They ended the game still tied for second because both were held without
a shot on goal. Team leader Brad Marchand
had only one shot on goal (and two minor penalties).
In the end…
It was a good win all around. Sure, the fancy-stat’ers will note that the
Caps were beaten in the possession statistics, but that is when a goalie needs
to step up, and Braden Holtby did with a fine game. The Caps made good on their power play
opportunities, and they kept Boston’s most dangerous players from being too
dangerous. It was a good step on the
rough March road, but only the first step.
It is a long road to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment