Boston was the top face-off team in the NHL during the regular season, finishing the season at 55.3 percent. The Caps had a bit of a face-off surge during the season after a dismal start, but they still finished 22nd in the circuit with a 49.2 percent success rate.
In the first two games of this series, the Bruins have been dominant on the dot, winning 61.5 percent of all face-offs, and winning 71.4 percent of all draws in their defensive zone.
Despite being on the wrong end of that lopsided disparity, the Caps held their own in puck possession in Game 1, but not so much in Game 2 when Boston had 60.6 percent of all even-strength shot attempts. From the start of the second period to Marchand's game-winner in Game 2, the Bruins owned 65.1 percent of all shot attempts.
"The face-offs definitely matter," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "That's possession, that's clear-cut possession. Either you're creating offense in the offensive zone, or a chance to break out from the defensive zone and get out of your end, or to establish the direction in the neutral zone. There is no question that it matters. We'll try to look at it and continue to see if there are things that we can do."
The Caps' face-off woes were compounded on Monday when Lars Eller left the game with a lower body injury midway through the second period. That left the Caps with only two natural centers in the lineup in Nicklas Backstrom and Dowd. Evgeny Kuznetsov has been missing from the Washington lineup since May 1.
"When you lose two centermen, their job is to take face-offs," says Laviolette. "When you've got a couple out of the lineup, it becomes a little more challenging. But we'll continue to work on it."
Even with the disparity in face-offs and possession, the Caps had an excellent opportunity to take a 2-0 series lead with them to Boston after Hathaway's second goal of the game gave them a 2-0 lead at 7:04 of the third. After taking that lead, the Caps were diligent and consistent at getting pucks deep and making the Bruins come 200 feet for any scoring opportunities. But Washington didn't spend much time in the Boston end hanging onto pucks and wearing down the Boston defense.
With just under three minutes left in regulation, Hall got hold of an unsecured puck during a goalmouth scramble and he punched it home, setting the stage for Marchand.
"I think it's a tough call," says Dowd. "As much as you want to hold onto pucks and make plays down low [in the Boston end], the ice - the pucks are bouncing. And [the Bruins] are looking for offense, so they're cheating the other way. I think everyone has that mentality that if we get it in there, we feel pretty confident that if they have to come up through five of our guys and Andy, we're pretty confident that that's going to be a hard thing to do.
"But yeah, would you love to play your best defense by playing in the offensive zone the entire game? For sure, yeah, no question. But dealing with what we were dealing with and being a resilient team, I thought we played well tonight."
Game 2 may end up being the one that got away from Washington, but the focus has to be squarely on Game 3 now.
"We gave up the lead, so if you go back and look at it, you'll say, 'We could have done this, or we could have done that,'" says Laviolette. "So, it's over with. We move on. We've got to get ready for the next game. Nobody likes giving up a late lead. We did, and they won it in overtime. Game 2 is over and we've got to move on to Game 3."
