Capitals lose chippy battle with surging Bruins
“I’ve got to give our guys credit: I don’t think that we ever stopped trying to pursue that game, and it just didn’t happen for us,” Capitals Coach Peter Laviolette said. “Tonight we had a lot of really good looks. We had three or four breakaways and just weren’t able to cash in on it. … At the end of the day, there was probably a mistake or two that we maybe should have cleaned up, could have cleaned up.”
Vitek Vanecek struggled for his second consecutive start, allowing five goals on 27 shots after he was pulled during the second period of his previous start Thursday, a 5-2 home loss to last-place Buffalo. The Bruins were efficient Sunday, scoring at least three times on Vanecek for the fourth time this season.
Tensions rose in the third period, after Boston rattled off three straight goals in the second to take a 5-3 lead.
The game got chippier as the clock ticked toward zero. Capitals forward Tom Wilson was at the center of an unfortunate hit on Boston forward Sean Kuraly, who was falling on the play, and Bruins defenseman Jarred Tinordi was assessed a roughing minor after retaliating. Minutes later, Washington’s Garnet Hathaway was given a major penalty and a game misconduct after a video review for boarding Tinordi with 10:39 to play. Supplemental discipline is not expected for either play.
“Are we serious? I’m not even going to talk about it,” Wilson said of the collision with Kuraly. “It’s a nothing play. He’s fine. That’s it.”
The Capitals’ best chances of the final period came early, when Alex Ovechkin had a breakaway and then Lars Eller followed on the rebound moments later, but Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask (30 saves) stopped both with ease. Ovechkin was held without a point and is still at 730 career goals, one shy of matching Marcel Dionne for fifth on the NHL’s all-time list.
The Capitals, who had stayed fairly healthy over the past couple of weeks, found themselves dealing with a couple of banged-up players Sunday.
Defenseman Justin Schultz was ruled out to start the second period with a lower-body injury. He limped off after taking an awkward hit from the Bruins’ Taylor Hall that caught him in the left leg 8:42 into the game and did not return. Laviolette did not have an update on Schultz’s status after the game.
The Capitals were also without 44-year-old defenseman Zdeno Chara for the first time this season. Chara was ailing after a couple of painful blocked shots in Saturday’s 6-3 win at Philadelphia. Trevor van Riemsdyk slotted into the lineup in Chara’s place and earned his first regular shifts since Feb. 7 against the Flyers.
Washington struggled early and fell behind 2-0 before it started to rally. T.J. Oshie scored on a rebound of Nicklas Backstrom’s shot with 9.9 seconds left in the first period to give the Capitals their first big lift.
“Against a team like that, big moments changed the game,” Wilson said. “They have a lot of good players on that side. … We were in it and out of it and in it and out of it kind of the whole night, and [we] couldn’t stick with it and get the outcome we wanted.”
The Capitals took advantage when Boston’s Connor Clifton took his second double minor for high-sticking only 2:53 into the second period. They scored on both ends of the four-minute power play to take their first lead.
First, Oshie scored again, this time from the slot to tie the score at 2 at 3:48. Oshie’s 16th goal of the season gave him nine goals and eight assists in his past 14 games.
Anthony Mantha scored next at 4:54. It was his fourth goal in as many games since he was acquired from Detroit at Monday’s trade deadline, and he became the first player in Capitals history to score in each of his first four games with the organization.
Boston then pumped the gas again and scored three in a row to close the period and push its lead back to two. Brad Marchand tied the score at 3 at 6:33, then David Krejci scored his second goal of the day at 16:02. Patrice Bergeron added his second of the day on a tic-tac-toe play on an odd-man rush 1:43 after Krejci scored.
After the intensity ratcheted up in the third period, Marchand sealed the win for the Bruins with an empty-netter with 1:44 left.
“We keep pushing to play the best game that we can possibly play,” Laviolette said. “Was it today? No. Did we compete hard and keep fighting for the game? Yes.”
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