Caps Nip B's in Shootout, 2-1

Two of the top teams in the East Division tangled on Wednesday night in Boston in the front end of a pair of contests between the Bruins and the Caps this week. In a game virtually void of offensive fireworks, Washington claimed the opener 2-1 in a shootout.

Jakub Vrana scored the lone goal of the skills competition and Vitek Vanecek made all three saves needed to lift Washington to its fourth straight win, handing Boston its fifth loss in its last seven games (2-4-1).

"The ice was kind of bumpy today, so I wasn't sure if I should shoot or keep it simple," says Vrana of his shootout winner. "Once I touched the puck at center, I was feeling it a little bit. Then, just a couple of fakes; one fake, a second fake - and then to be honest, I watched it skating to the bench and I saw it up there on the jumbotron. I saw my space there, and I had just enough for the puck. I had to do it quick, so thankfully it went in."
Although the season isn't yet halfway over, the game between the Caps and Bruins quickly took on a playoff feel. Time and space were hard to come by all over the ice, and through the game's scoreless first 40 minutes, the two teams combined for twice as many more hits than shots on net.
"It seemed like the ice was heavier tonight for both teams," says Boston coach Bruce Cassidy. "They looked fatigued; the puck was bouncing around. It didn't lend itself to a lot of crisp plays."
The Caps had a first-period goal from T.J. Oshie nullified by a successful challenge for offside, and quality scoring chances were rare at both ends. Boston's Tuukka Rask was seeking his 300th career win while Vanecek took aim at No. 10 for his career, and both were excellent on the somewhat rare occasions their services were required.
Early in the third, the Bruins finally broke the scoreless spell when Brad Marchand forced a turnover at the Boston blueline and took off in transition with the ever-dangerous David Pastrnak riding shotgun on a 2-on-1 rush. Marchand made the pass, and Pastrnak made the shot, sliding it through Vanecek's legs for a 1-0 Boston lead at 1:19.
Washington kept plugging away, and it managed to manufacture the equalizer just under five minutes later, also taking advantage of a turnover.

Oshie made a good read in the offensive zone, picking of an exit feed. He floated a cross-ice feed to Nick Jensen, who put a hard drive on net from the right point. Despite a swarm of black jerseys in front, Richard Panik and Lars Eller double-teamed the rebound and Eller jammed it home from below the goal line, knotting the score at 1-1 at 6:14 of the third.
Laviolette has urged his team to have a greater shot mentality as of late, and it paid off in this instance.
"Osh made a good pass; he sauced it over their guy," recounts Jensen. "I just came down, wide open. I saw [Panik at the] back door, and their [defense] came out in a pretty good lane. Our focus was to get a few more pucks to the net, and I had a choice where I could have tried to make a back-door play, which - if executed correctly - would have been a tap-in. But I opted to get the puck to the net because that's something that our coaching staff has really kept on us about."

Although things opened up a bit offensively in the back half of the final frame, neither side could forge ahead and overtime was required for the second time in three meetings between the Caps and Bruins this season. Washington had the better of the chances in the extra session, but needed Vrana's slick goal and Vanecek's poised stops in the shootout to extend its winning streak to four.
"I thought it was a good game," says Laviolette. "I mean, it was tight out there. Through probably 50 minutes of the game, the shots were low, and the chances were really low on both sides.
"Defensively, I thought we were good. Offensively, we'll try to step on the gas a little bit more and they'll probably say the same thing. It was just one of those games that was tight, and you had to play the game that was dealt. That was the game that was dealt, and I thought our guys did a good job defensively. We know they've got a good team, so it was a good win for our guys."