Marchand, Bruins end Capitals winning streak at four

BOSTON -- Brad Marchand had two goals and an assist, and the Boston Bruins ended the Washington Capitals' four-game winning streak with a 5-1 victory at TD Garden on Friday.

Jaroslav Halak made 31 saves, Patrice Bergeron had a goal and an assist, and Charlie McAvoy had two assists for Boston (13-5-3), which won for the third time in its past eight games (3-4-1).
The Bruins scored three times in the second period, the first 32 seconds after a fight between defenseman Jarred Tinordi and Capitals forward Tom Wilson.
In the first period, Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo had to leave the game with an upper-body injury after a hit by Wilson. There was no penalty called.
"Sometimes when that stuff happens and there's no call, the players kind of settle it on the ice in their own way," Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said. "We felt that we pushed back and did what we could do and won the hockey game and tried to let that particular player know that it's unnecessary. So that's how we handled it and that's what I thought about the whole situation."

Vitek Vanecek allowed four goals on 18 shots before he was replaced by Ilya Samsonov (six saves) with 4:15 remaining in the second. Nicklas Backstrom got his 700th NHL assist for Washington (13-6-4).
"I think learning from this is there's no easy games out there," Backstrom said. "I feel like Boston played well today. They played faster than us. They were forechecking a lot better and I feel like we were struggling with a lot of things. A good team like this is going to catch us. We've got to play a little quicker, I think, overall, and that means in all three zones. Tough night for us."
The Capitals won the opener of the two-game set 2-1 in the shootout here Wednesday.

Marchand gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead with a backhand from the slot at 14:21 of the first period. Trent Frederic made it 2-0 on a redirection of a McAvoy pass at 6:43 of the second period.
"I thought the response was great," Marchand said. "The guys went out and did the job, it didn't need to be said. They just took control and answered the bell [physically]. And as a team we played the right way after that. We didn't let it distract us or get us down. Obviously we were thinking about [Carlo] the whole game, but we did the job, took care of business on the ice."
Bergeron extended the lead to 3-0 on a one-timer from the slot at 9:01. Marchand scored his second goal of the game at the side of the net to make it 4-0 at 14:58. Nick Ritchie made it 5-0 at 1:05 of the third period with a one-timer off a cross-ice pass by David Krejci.
Jakub Vrana ended the shutout at 13:36 with a shot from the right face-off circle to the far side that made it 5-1.
"There was a time of the [second] period where we did some mistakes, and a team like that's going to take advantage of it," Vrana said. "They score a couple goals there, and since that we kind of struggle to find our game back. It is what it is, and now the only thing we can do is to learn from the mistakes we did and then already put this game behind us and focus on the next game we have in front of us now."
NOTES: Backstrom became the 54th NHL player and first in Capitals history to reach 700 assists. He has played 979 games. … Cassidy said Carlo was taken to the hospital by ambulance. He was released from the hospital Saturday monring and went home. There was no further update.