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Beating the bajeezus out of the Bruins: Caps beat Bruins 8-1

By Chris Cerullo

 4 Comments

April 11, 2021 9:43 pm

The Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins did battle for the sixth time this season as the Caps start a long stretch against the better teams in the East Division to end this season.

TJ Oshie stayed hot on the power play, firing home the game’s first goal from his bumper spot. Lars Eller undressed a defenseman and sashayed his way to the front of the net to make it 2-0. Conor Sheary finished off a tic-tac-toe play to give the Caps a familiar three-goal advantage. That guy again, Sheary found the roof of the net to make it four.

Nic Dowd sniped high glove to add even more to the lead. Tom Wilson tapped home half a dozen. Craig Smith broke the shutout. TJ Oshie out of midair for the extra point. Lars Eller redirected his second of the game home.

We’re going dancing.

Caps beat Bruins 8-1!

  • Pretty fantastic first period against a banged-up Bruins team. The Caps were hard on pucks, first to pucks, and put pucks in the net. More importantly to me is that I thought their defensive spacing was very good for the first 18 or so minutes of the period and only broke down late in the frame due to some shoddy ice and bad luck.
  • Brenden Dillon got into a fight within the first four minutes of action and some may point to that as the spark for such a great period. I don’t, but some people might. I think another Caps defender, Dmitry Orlov deserves the spotlight for the start of this game. Dima got moved to the top pair and was a one-man breakout in the first.
  • Man, Conor Sheary was one hell of a pickup for just $735,000 this season. His backcheck and stick lift saved a probable goal against and he finished to the top shelf twice to put the Caps up three and then four. That’s now ten goals for Sheary in 39 games this season.

  • It’s tough for teams in the NHL to not face a down period in a game when they go up by multiple goals. The Caps were not immune to that for a stretch in this one as the Bruins pushed at five-on-five in the second period. Vitek Vanecek made three or four great saves and that led to his team backing his efforts up with even more goals. Great stuff, Vitek.
  • The Caps had six power-play opportunities, looked very good on all of them that mattered, and scored on three of them (Oshie’s second goal came just after the fifth power-play expired). The Bruins have the best penalty kill in the league but were without four defensemen so that may have something to do with it. Still, definitely a very positive night for that unit overall. They were slinging the biscuit around like it was nothing.
  • Every single Caps forward had at least one point in this game.
  • Wes McCauley is my favorite official in the league if I “had” to choose a favorite. You will never have a question about what penalty is being called if Wes has his arm up first.

Next up for the Caps is a date with the Philadelphia Flyers who lost to the Sabres again tonight. As you can tell, they are in desperate need of a win to keep their very slim playoff hopes alive.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Bruins

Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington

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