The Washington Capitals completed their road calendar with a visit to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night. Someone got hurt again.

After a scoreless first period, Brad Marchand of all people scored a power-play goal, finishing off some clean passing by Boston. Tyler Bertuzzi got a rebound from the low slot to make it 2-0, but Nick Jensen scored a rush goal off Charlie MacAvoy’s body to get Washington on the board.

Tomas Nosek got a gift of a failed clear in the third. Charlie Lindgren left the game with injury, then Tom Wilson recorded his 12th goal in his abbreviated season. Nosek sent a clean pass to Garnet Hathaway to make it 4-2 Boston. Jake DeBrusk got the empty-netter.

Caps lose. They finish the season at home on Thursday.

• Alex Ovechkin did not score. He did not even play. Will he play in game 82? Should he?
• Boston is a very good hockey club, like historically good. The Caps in their current state are not good; I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Boston throttled Caps at five-on-five play, nearly doubling up Washington in shot attempts and expected goals. This was one of the most uneven games of the whole season.
• After a horrific performance against the Isles last night, Evgeny Kuznetsov played even worse in Boston. At last check, the Capitals owned 3.1 percent of the expected goals when he was on the ice. I try to avoid jargon-ing up these game recaps, but 50 percent in expected goals is even, meaning both teams generated the same amount of offense, so Kuznetsov was 46.9 percentage points below that. I’m so excited to not watch him play hockey next week.
• Meanwhile, Charlie Lindgren drew the short straw to face this opponent, but I think he acquitted himself well. He made some S-tier stops in the first period and was beaten only on the power play – first at the end of some sharp passes, then when Bertuzzi crashed the net for a rebound. In the third period, Lindgren lost his glove and then blocked a shot. The puck could have wrecked his naked hand.

https://twitter.com/HockeyDaily365/status/1645959302941745155

• Not long after he was nearly injured, Lindgren was actually injured, suffering an apparent lower-body injury after a series of sprawling saves. An undignified end to a valiant effort. I like Lindgren, and I hope he can find some traction next season.
• Garnet Hathaway‘s goal: betrayal… or a subtle favor? Either way, that pass from Nosek was clean.

https://twitter.com/HockeyDaily365/status/1645961623637577734

• Boston goalie Linus Ullmark left the game in the third period without explanation. I hope he’s alright – he’s got a big week next week.
• Something is wrong with my brain where I know that Todd Bertuzzi has been retired forever, but I still have to think of him before I am able to think of his nephew Tyler.
• Looks like the Metro title will come down to Thursday night. The Canes are over the Devils by one point. The Devils will play in DC, the Canes in Florida. The Penguins are losing right now though, so there’s that.

https://twitter.com/peterhassett/status/1645925119800274945

Chris is on recap duty for the finale on Thursday, so I have a parting thought for you now.

This game was meaningless. The Capitals had already been eliminated from playoff contention, so this game didn’t matter. But it was meaningless even before that. Because Hockey is a frivolity. It’s a silly distraction from the real world, where Real Things Really Matter. Hockey doesn’t matter. It holds no inherent meaning.

Whatever meaning hockey has is the meaning you have brought to it. Hockey as a cultural experience is like mass psychosis, where we’re all hallucinating that it has certain values and qualities and stakes and drama. That hallucination mediates how people think about and talk about the sport, but you don’t have to go with the flow. Even in a supposedly meaningless game, you are empowered to make hockey mean to you whatever you want.

Yeah, it was a pounding loss at the sputtering end of a cursed season, but it was also a few dozen star athletes in peak physical condition putting on a show for thousands of people. Nick Jensen scored a goal on a silly deflection, and Charlie Lindgren made a cartoonish save without a glove on. If you’re a non-partisan, you got a look at a truly elite hockey team that is about to test their mettle in the sport’s big tournament. And if you just like the telecast, you got another hour with your friends, Joe B and Locker.

You get to decide what hockey means to you, and to me this was time well spent. See you next time. 🌹

Headline photo: @ryanalsot