Playing on the road for the first time in the 2024 preseason, the Caps dropped a 4-2 decision to the Bruins in Boston on Tuesday night. The B’s rolled up a 3-0 lead by the midpoint of the second stanza, and the Caps weren’t able to shrink the deficit to less than two.
Boston scored the lone goal of the first period, jumping out to a 1-0 lead on a Riley Tufte goal from in tight at 11:51. Tufte’s goal came in the midst of a stretch were the Bruins were tilting the ice and spending a fair amount of sustained time in Washington’s zone, but the Caps were defending well and blocking shots during that stretch, too. Tufte’s goal came on Boston’s first shot on net in a span of just under seven minutes.
Minutes after the Tufte tally, Washington went on the game’s first power play. Each of the Caps’ two extra-man units was able to set up a one-timer look from the left dot; Ivan Miroshnichenko had a look on the first unit and Ethen Frank on the second, but Boston’s Joonas Korpisalo handled them both, and Boston took a 1-0 lead to the room after the game’s first 20 minutes. The Bruins also opened the middle period with 75 seconds worth of residual power play time.
There were only nine face-offs in the first 14-plus minutes of the first frame, and one of them followed an icing and another one followed the lone goal of the frame, leading to the odd circumstance of all three first-period television timeouts coming within the final six minutes of the frame.
Early in the second, the B’s had a brief 5-on-3 manpower advantage. The Caps were able to kill off those perilous seconds, but Boston’s Fabian Lysell made them pay when he struck for a power-play goal with just two seconds left on the second infraction. Lysell’s goal made it 2-0 for the home team at 2:59.
Seconds shy of the midpoint of the middle period, the Bruins stretched their lead to 3-0 when Patrick Brown scored a rush goal from the high slot at 9:46.
Washington was able answer back quickly after Brown’s goal. The P-L Dubois line – with Connor McMichael and Tom Wilson – put on a clinic in physicality and forechecking, swarming the B’s in their end and collapsing their defense down low. With all three Caps forwards crowding the net front, Dubois was able to push the puck to McMichael, who was stationed just off the post on the weak side. McMichael calmly lifted it into the open net to make it a 3-1 game at the 11-minute mark.
McMichael’s goal was a prime example of what that trio may be capable of in the season ahead.
“Absolutely,” concurs Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “Willie changes the momentum in that game with the physicality, and being hard over pucks. And that's good for our young guys to see that, because when play against Boston – as everybody knows – the makeup [of the team] and even the young guys through their organization, that they have to play a certain way, and it's the Bruin way. And it's going to be a hard, heavy game, no matter if you're playing against Providence or Boston. So, when Willie now tilts the ice and he starts to dictate that physical game, you can see how the momentum changes and they get rewarded for it right away.”
Wilson dropped two Bruins deep in their own end, five seconds apart. And 14 seconds after the second hit, McMichael scored.
“You saw Willie almost murder that guy,” recounts McMichael. “Then Dubes found the puck and made a nice play. We kind of just got all around the net and they found me.
“I think that's going to be a good example of what what's to come for our group. I think Willie brings a big body. Dube is this huge body as well, great skater. I think we're going to mix in well together.”
Washington’s Protas brothers – Aliaksei and Ilya – played together for the first time in Tuesday’s game. Late in the second period, the brothers took a shift together, and Aliaksei nearly scored, ringing a hard shot from the left circle off the far post.
“I didn't mind this game at all,” says Carbery of Aliaksei Protas. “I thought there was a couple different instances where he used his speed, protected pucks, got in on the forecheck. He obviously had the rush chance where he rang it off the bar. So I was happy with his game.”
Eighteen-year-old Ilya Protas made his NHL preseason debut, and he was more noticeable as the game wore on, also making some good plays on the forecheck.
“It’s a hard league, very fast,” says the younger Protas of his debut. “It was tough for a couple of shifts; the first period was tough. But the second and third period was better, once I started to adapt to the speed and the play of the game.”
With a second power play opportunity late in the second, the Caps could have climbed to within a goal of their hosts. But they weren’t able to muster much on that opportunity. A third manpower chance in the final frame gave them some sustained zone time, but still no sale.
Meanwhile, Boston bumped its advantage to 4-1 with a nifty backhand goal off the rush from Justin Brazeau at 2:12 of the third. Brazeau converted a sublime feed from Georgii Merkulov.
In the game’s final minute, Henry Rybinski made an alert play in the slot, bumping the biscuit to Andrew Cristall just off to the right. Cristall was able to bury his second goal in as many preseason games at 19:16, accounting for the 4-2 final score.
The Caps are back in action again on Wednesday night when they pay a visit to the Devils in New Jersey.
