For 40 minutes on Monday night in Boston, the Capitals and the Bruins hooked up in a taut, low event hockey game in which both clubs defended extremely well and struggled to find space and opportunity offensively. Ten seconds into the third period, Washington had a chance to snap what was a 1-1 deadlock when B’s forward Oliver Wahlstrom was assessed a five-minute boarding major and a game misconduct for a hit in the corner on Washington defenseman Martin Fehervary.
But the Caps weren’t able to manufacture the go-ahead marker on the man advantage; they weren’t able to even test Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman with a shot on net during that five-minute span. Washington wasn’t able to take advantage of its opportunity but late in the third, Boston did. The B’s scored a pair of late goals on odd man rushes and added an empty-netter to hand the Caps a 4-1 setback in the final game for both teams ahead of the NHL’s holiday break.
With 6:19 remaining, Elias Lindholm took a feed from Brad Marchand on a 2-on-1 rush and beat Charlie Lindgren to break a 1-1 tie that had stood for nearly 30 minutes of playing time. Charlie Coyle struck again minutes later on a 3-on-1 rush, and Marchand’s late empty-netter accounted for the 4-1 final, matching the Caps’ most lopsided loss of the season; they also dropped a 3-0 decision to the Lightning in Tampa on Oct. 26.
The Caps finished the game with a season low 11 shots on net, with just eight of them coming at even strength. Washington recorded its final shot of the game with 10:11 left in the third period of what was a 1-1 game at that point.
“I thought we checked fine, didn’t give up a whole lot, and kept them at bay the majority of the game,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “We just struggled to generate anything substantial with the puck. We struggled just with any situation where we got them vulnerable – which was quite a few. We made some plays to turn them over and get puck possession, we just couldn’t do anything tonight.”
Monday’s first period was essentially even at 5-on-5, with both teams taking away time and space effectively in their own end of the ice and struggling to get to the interior in the offensive zone. Washington had the game’s first power play, but it struggled with entries and wasn’t particularly sharp. The Caps did record two of their three first-period shots on net during that man advantage.
The game took a turn late in the first when Fehervary was boxed for boarding Boston’s John Beecher. Just over a minute later, the Bruins took a 1-0 lead when Justin Brazeau found and backhanded the rebound of a Morgan Geekie shot into the net with 47.2 seconds remaining in the first frame.
Washington went on the power play for a second time early in the middle period, and for the better part of the two minutes, the Caps struggled mightily to enter Boston ice and to get set up. In the waning seconds of the man advantage, Washington finally got a clean entry and began working the puck around the perimeter of the Bruins’ zone. From center point, Rasmus Sandin put it on a tee for Jakub Vrana, whose one-timer from the right dot found the far corner of the cage behind Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman at 4:50, just nine seconds before the end of the power play.
Vrana now has a goal in each of his last three games, and Sandin reached the 100-point plateau with the primary helper on the play.
“It's nice that one went in,” says Vrana. “But at the same time, we really wanted to win tonight. I think everybody gave their best tonight. It’s hockey sometimes. You win and you lose some, and it's obviously tough before the break, but I think overall, we've been playing well.”
Forty minutes into the game, neither team had much of anything going on at 5-on-5; Boston led 9-4 in even strength shots on goal after two periods, but the Caps held a 23-18 advantage in shot attempts at evens.
Ten seconds into the third, the Caps had their best opportunity to take the lead and potentially to add to it, but they were unable to mount much of a threat despite a decent amount of zone time during the Wahlstrom major penalty.
“I think it was a little bit of the same as at 5-on-5,” says Tom Wilson. “We just weren’t really getting pucks to the net and we were a little bit too perimeter. They were forcing us on the outside, and we just maybe needed to find a few more pucks underneath them, and get it to the net, a similar kind of thing to the whole game, probably.”
“Puck possession was okay, but not enough threatening to the net,” says Carbery of the Caps’ power play shortcomings in the third. “We tried to make a few plays; [Connor McMichael] tries a [seam pass], and it’s off someone’s skate. Some plays like that.
“We weren’t very good offensively with the puck tonight to really cause much [damage] on the power play or at 5-on-5.”
