Make that 15 straight games.
The Bruins dominated the Capitals in the opening period,
converted opportunities in the second period, and held off the home team in the
third period to leave Washington with a 4-2 win at Verizon Center this
afternoon.
The Bruins overwhelmed the Capitals in the first period,
outshooting the home team by a 15-9 margin and going to the first intermission
with a 30-14 edge in shot attempts. What
the Bruins did not do was score. Neither did the Caps.
That situation resolved itself less than three minutes into
the second period when Boston was a step ahead in every phase of a
sequence. First it was David Krejci
getting to a loose puck along the wall just inside the Bruins’ blue line a step
ahead of Eric Fehr. When Krejci sent the
puck up along the wall, it skidded past a linesman then past the stick of
defenseman Karl Alzner. It made its way
to Carl Soderberg who backhanded a pass to Jarome Iginla just before John
Carlson could get a body on Soderberg. Iginla skated in alone on goalie Braden
Holtby, and just before Tom Wilson could close the distance on the back check
Iginla snapped the puck through Holtby’s pads, and it was 1-0.
Five minutes later the Bruins had a 2-0 lead. With Fehr off for hooking the Bruins gained
the Caps’ zone with speed, Dougie
Hamilton carrying the puck through the middle.
Hamilton curled off to his left, throwing the puck across to Loui
Eriksson on the right side. Eriksson found
Patrice Bergeron coming down the middle, and Bergeron one-timed the puck to the
net. The puck hit the skate of Carl
Soderberg in front, tipping the puck through Holtby’s pads to give the Bruins a
2-0 lead.
If the Caps were holding out hope that the “the most dangerous
lead in hockey” would be wiped clean, Boston put an end to that just 41 seconds
after the Soderberg goal. Jarome Iginla
got his second of the game – 30th of the season – when he followed
up his own shot and backhanded a rebound past Holtby’s right pad to make it
3-0.
The Caps made it respectable in the last minute of the
period when they gave the Bruins some of their own medicine. It started with Mike Green skating the puck
down the left side. As he crossed the
Boston blue line he flipped the puck at the net, looking for a deflection from
Jason Chimera seaming down the middle.
Chimera was marked by Johnny Boychuk, who actually deflected Green’s
attempt into goalie Chad Johnson. The
puck was not handled cleanly, though, and Chimera’s momentum put him in
position to tap in the loose puck from Johnson’s right, making it 3-1 Bruins at
the second intermission.
Boston appeared content to run out the clock in the last 20
minutes, but they did add a goal on another power play. It started with Dougie Hamliton tapping his
stick on the ice calling for the puck.
He got it from Patrice Bergeron at the right point. Hamilton fired a shot at the Capitals’ net
where a group had congregated. The puck
was stopped, but Bergeron, darting in from the left wing wall after sending the
puck to Hamilton, was alone to Holtby’s right to shove the puck into the back
of the net to make it 4-1.
The Caps got some window dressing at the end, Evgeny
Kuznetsov scoring in the last minute when Chad Johnson was caught in no-man’s
land 20 feet from the net trying to beat Troy Brouwer to a loose puck to the
right of the net. When Johnson missed and was briefly tangled up with Brouwer,
Kuznetsov swooped in and wristed the puck from a severe angle into the far top
corner of the net for the final tally of the day, Boston winning, 4-2.
Other stuff…
-- Iginla’s two goals made it 30 for the season, making him
just the 12th player in the last 30 years to reach that mark in a
season having reached the age of 36 or older.
-- Chad Johnson’s win makes him 11-0-1 over his last 14
appearances for Boston. Over that span
he has a goals against average of 1.83 and a save percentage of .934.
-- Marcus Johansson had an excellent chance to break a rough
spell in which he had one goal over 29 games.
Troy Brouwer set him up almost on a tee from the inside edge of the
right wing circle for an open look early in the third period that might have
brought the Caps back within a goal. He
was denied on the attempt, and what might have been the Caps’ last chance to
get back into the game passed by.
-- Alex Ovechkin had five shots on goal, but none were
especially threatening. Average shot
distance was 41 feet and none closer than 34 feet.
-- Two pairs twice victimized. John Carlson and Karl Alzner were on for two
goals against, as was the pair of John Erskine and Patrick Wey. Mike Green and Dmitry Orlov escaped unscathed.
-- Green was one of the few Caps of which it might be said, “he
played a pretty good game.” In almost 23
minutes Green had an assist, four shots on goal, eight shot attempts, and three
blocked shots.
-- Boston moved to 39-5-1 when scoring the game’s first
goal. Only St. Louis has more wins (40)
when scoring first.
-- Evgeny Kuznetsov is now tied with Jay Beagle for 17th
on the team in scoring (7 points) and is tied for 40th in scoring
among rookie forwards. After nine games.
-- The loss made it consecutive losses for the Caps on this
abbreviated home stand (0-1-1). It is
the first time they lost consecutive games on the same home stand since losing
in shootouts to both Buffalo and San Jose January 12th and 14th.
-- OK, in five full games since The Great Experiment began,
here is how the even strength points break down… Alex Ovechkin: 0, Jay Beagle:
0, Marcus Johansson: 0. How’s it
working, Caps fans? Oh, it hardly gets
much better. Nicklas Backstrom: 1, Troy
Brouwer: 1, Evgeny Kuznetsov: 2.
Meanwhile, the third line… Eric Fehr: 1, Jason Chimera: 2, Joel Ward: 3. And it was that third line who put on a show of cycling and controlling the puck for almost a half minute in the Bruins' zone that ended when Boston took a penalty in the seventh minute of the third period.
In the end…
Just another in a season full of opportunities the Capitals
let pass by. Most assuredly, this was
hardly low-hanging fruit. Boston is
arguably the best team in the league at the moment. However, the Caps looked as if they were
still shuffling along in robe and slippers for the first 25-30 minutes of the
early-starting game. Braden Holtby kept
the Caps in it in the first period, but Boston’s relentless pressure was too
much as the minutes wore on. And while
there might be those who think the Caps were prepared to make a game of it late
in the second period and early in the third, 10-15 minutes worth of effort is
not going to win many games, and there was still the fact that the Bruins – a team
that has not allowed more than two goals in a game in three weeks – had a 3-0
lead when the Caps finally woke up.
Washington was never really in this game.
And so it goes. The
Caps go to Nashville on Sunday in a game that they just about have to have to
stay within reach of a playoff spot.
This is where the schedule takes one last nasty turn for the Caps. Five of the Caps’ last eight games are on the
road, and two of the home games are against Chicago and Tampa Bay, both teams
having reached the 40-win mark already.
It just is not going to get any easier from here on out.
