Trailing the best-of-7 series 3-1, Washington needs to win Game 5 at home Sunday to avoid being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for a third straight season since winning the Stanley Cup in 2018.
"You want to see a desperate team, you want to see fight," center Lars Eller said. "At the same time, we've got to stay composed. But we need the best from everybody, from every individual. We need a lot more than what we got tonight, and I know we can do it."
Teams that trail 3-1 are 29-291 (9.1 percent) winning a best-of-7 NHL playoff series, including 0-13 last season. Washington has lost nine of 11 series it has trailed 3-1.
"We have to want it," center Nicklas Backstrom said. "I think it's obviously a big game coming up and we have to be mentally ready. I feel like the previous three games before this we were a lot better than tonight. So we've got to be mentally ready and we've got to play for each other. That's maybe something we didn't do tonight."
After the first three games of the series went to overtime, Boston pulled away by outscoring Washington 3-1 in the third period, including twice in the first 1:03.
The Bruins outshot the Capitals 37-20, holding them without a shot on goal for an 18:40 stretch that spanned the first and second periods, and held a big edge in special teams. Boston was 3-for-5 on the power play compared to Washington, which was 1-for-7 and only scored when a one-timer from Ovechkin that was going wide deflected off the stick of Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo.
"We've got to play a better game than we did," Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said. "The first three games were relatively close and they go to overtime. This one, we just weren't good enough. We weren't fast enough. We didn't execute well enough."
The Capitals finished second in the MassMutual East Division and were expecting a long playoff run. But following three straight losses, they are on the brink of another early exit after being eliminated by the New York Islanders in five games in the Eastern Conference First Round last season and by the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games in the first round in 2019.
"It's disappointing and a little frustration as well, but at the same time, it's not over," Backstrom said. "So we've just go to regroup here and then we're going back home here (for Game 6), so hopefully we can have a good meeting tomorrow and talk about stuff we can do better."
One area Washington can be better is generating shots on net. On Friday, the Bruins blocked 17 shots and limited the Capitals to 14 shots on goal at even strength and six shots on goal on the power play, which is 3-for-17 in the series.
"I feel like we have to come up with something new here," Backstrom said. "I feel like they're reading us pretty us pretty well. So we can talk about that tomorrow and get better. We've just got to get some more shots and just create those secondary chances, I think."
The Capitals were hopeful their Stanley Cup championship in 2018 was going to be the first of multiple titles, but they have yet to find a way to recapture the success they had that postseason. Instead, they appear to be running out of steam, again, while the Bruins seem to be getting stronger.
"Just think we didn't really bring it today," Eller said. "We were off and now we've got 48 hours to regroup here, and I want to see a different team in Game 5 at home. I believe we can do that. I've seen it before."
