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Caps beat Bruins 2-1 in their best game of the year

By Peter Hassett

 2 Comments

March 3, 2021 9:55 pm

The Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins played a fierce game on Wednesday night. It had a playoff feel, which is the polite way of saying that neither team could put a dang shot on net.

I swear the Caps scored in the first period, but it didn’t count, so we went forty minutes with a goalie duel. Then, eighty seconds into the third period, John Carlson got owned at the Boston blue line and David Pastrnak scored on a breakaway. Lars Eller fought back with a greasy rebound goal from traffic to tie it up with 14 minutes left in rego.

Boston goalie Tuukka Rask had to bust out a big save on Dmitry Orlov to survive overtime, but he did.

Shootout bullets.

  • DeBrusk did NOT put the biscuit in the basket
  • Vrana put the biscuit in the basket
  • Pasta did NOT put the biscuit in the basket
  • Oshie did NOT put the biscuit in the basket
  • Marchand did NOT put the biscuit in the basket

Caps win!

  • TJ Oshie should of scored in the first period. His aggressive forecheck and Richard Panik’s please-don’t-make-me-shoot passing instincts gave him an early goal, but maybe that forecheck was too strong; he was called offside.
  • Alex Ovechkin had a scary moment in the first period if you’re the kind of person who is still capable of being scared for Alex Ovechkin. He collided with Charlie MacAvoy on an odd play where MacAvoy was blindsided and Ovechkin didn’t anticipate his backcheck path. Ovechkin went down and required trainer attention, and then he had to serve an interference penalty. That was a bad call, but maybe it made up for the softness of the call against MacAvoy earlier that period. Anyway, Ovechkin was fine. He’s always fine. Take it to the bank.
  • For the 40,000th time, Vitek Vanecek carried a shutout into the third period, where it promptly evaporated by no fault of his own. But again, to get there in the first place, VV had to get darn lucky. Check out this double-ping from Pastrnak in the first:

  • The Caps had a very strong first period, but the Bruins redoubled their effort in the second, and the game just sorta went into the mud. It wasn’t bad by any means, but the shots-on-goal rate went down the toilet.
  • But then after Pastrnak’s goal, the Caps got super aggressive again and dominated the flow of play until late. Really strong stuff.
  • This was Zdeno Chara’s first game in Boston since leaving the team after 14 seasons. The empty arena gave him a tribute video. Maybe some front-line worker gave him a standing ovation. We’ll never know.
  • I’m not going to pretend like I know who Trent Frederic is, but he entertained me on this night, and for that I am grateful. Anyway, I hope Ovechkin doesn’t murder him.
  • Lars Eller‘s moose-tiger-horse power remains unrivaled. He has five points in four games. I love how un-finesse-y his goal in this game was.
  • Meanwhile, for all his offensive talents, John Carlson got a bit handcuffed before Marchand pants-ed him at the blue line for the Pastrnak goal. I’d really love to see less of that.
  • Pierre was insufferable tonight.

National broadcast means no Joe B suit of the night, so here’s, uh, here’s a lyric video from my new album, which came out today.

That’s like the least representative snippet possible; it’s really like a progressive genre-blend record, and it’s more depressive than anything. Anyway It’s on all the streaming platforms, and you can find it at latenight.delivery. Hope you like it!

There was a moment somewhere in the middle of this game where I decided I was watching the best two teams of the division. I don’t think these are the two best teams in the east, which is still too inchoate for me to get a good read on, but still. This was a well played game without a handful of obvious mistakes, and the Caps held serve against the presumptive division winners. I think that’s telling.

This might have been the best game I’ve seen from the Caps all season. Against a strong opponent, they had a great first period with a stingy defense. Then they adjusted well to Boston’s feistiness in the second period by playing tight and aggressive. And after Pastrnak scored, they took over the game and rededicated themselves to scoring. I liked it a lot.

See ya next time.

RMNB Coverage of Caps at Bruins

Screenshot courtesy of NBCSN

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