Caps 3, Boston Bruins 2
There are now just three games left in the regular season as the Caps moved one step closer to next week’s Stanley Cup playoffs. The team is already en route to Pittsburgh after a dramatic 3-2 overtime victory over the Boston Bruins on Monday night at Verizon Center. The win didn’t do much to clear up who Washington’s postseason opponent will be, however.
Montreal (39-32-8, 86 points) is in sixth place in the Eastern Conference. The Bruins – at 36-30-13, 85 points – take over seventh. But they are just one point ahead of Philadelphia (39-34-6, 84 points), which has a tenuous hold on the No. 8 seed. The surging New York Rangers (36-32-10, 82 points) – unlike the other playoff contenders – have one extra game left to play, including two against the Flyers. Atlanta (34-32-13, 81 points) is a longshot with three games left and little chance to win any tiebreakers.
So that’s about as clear a picture as I can give you of the playoff chase. The Rangers play at Buffalo on a busy Tuesday. Montreal plays at the New York Islanders. Philadelphia is at Toronto and Atlanta hosts the New Jersey Devils. Boston will have to wait until Thursday for its next game. The Bruins finish the regular season back here in the District at noon on Sunday.
Alex Ovechkin played one of his better games in a while. He had two assists to move within two points of Henrik Sedin for the NHL lead (106). Ovechkin’s last five points are all assists since he scored a goal against Calgary on March 28. That was also his last multiple-point game. Seemed like he had a jump we haven’t seen as much of lately. Bruce Boudreau may not get to rest all of his top players. But Ovechkin was limited to 18 minutes, 14 seconds of ice time on Monday. That definitely won’t happen in the playoffs. He also took a game-high six shots.
“[Ovechkin] competed. He got involved. He wasn’t afraid to hit today. Well, he’s never afraid, but ever since that suspension, I think it has been on his mind. When he was going in and hitting guys he was turning away a bit. He’s got to be him. I said, ‘You’re not a dirty player so just play the way you normally play.’
Give credit again to goalie Jose Theodore, who earned his second start in a row and is now a virtual lock to begin the playoffs as the No. 1 goalie. It’ll be up to him to prove he can keep it. But for now Theodore is going well again. He is 19-0-3 without a regulation loss since Jan. 13. He finished with 28 saves on 30 Boston shots. Add that to his excellent 34-save performance against Columbus on Saturday and he’s 63 of his last 66. Theodore’s bailed out his teammates for their defensive lapses more than few times during this brief stretch. The Caps struggled with that again at times. You get the feeling if they weren’t playing the NHL’s worst offensive team – and one without star center Marc Savard, at that – this would have been a loss.
“We had some real quality chances that I thought we should have buried,” said Bruins coach Claude Julien.
Caps Notes
» The Caps (52-15-12, 116 points) continue to torment the people who cover the team with 10 overtime games played now in the last 20. There is just no reasoning with them, I guess. You can also make that eight overtime games in the last 14, just to show exactly how unreasonable they’ve become. This is taking months off all our lives.
» Boston’s power play was 0-for-3, including one in the second period where they didn’t muster a shot. Washington has killed nine penalties in a row.
» The Caps were 1-for-2 on their power play, including the game-winner by Brooks Laich. That puck shot by Alex Semin hit Laich – well, it hit him somewhere in the midsection. Let’s just leave it at that. Laich “settled” it and then whacked it past Boston goalie Tuukka Rask. Even with that steel cage protecting his face, Laich still knows how to go to the bakery. It was his second overtime game-winner of the year. The first one came Oct. 24 against the Islanders.
» Caps defenseman John Erskine blocked a game-high five shots.
» Rough faceoff night for the Caps. Top faceoff man David Steckel won just 5 of 15 and lost a faceoff late in the first period to Patrice Bergeron that led directly to Dennis Wideman’s goal with 1.6 left in the period. Nicklas Backstrom did win 8 of 12 for Washington.
» Backstrom also had a goal and two assists. That gives him 31 goals for the year and 64 assists. He is now just five points shy of the magic 100 mark with three games left to go. Backstrom also pulled to within two points of Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby (97 points) for third place in the NHL. Mark that down as an intriguing subplot to tomorrow night’s game.
» Alex Semin (78 points) is one shy of his career high – set last season. He has seven points over the last eight games after providing the assist on Laich’s overtime goal.
» Record watch: Caps have 29 wins at Verizon Center and by beating Atlanta and Boston later this week would break that mark, too.
» Mike Knuble had a goal and an assist and became the seventh Caps player to surpass 50 points this season. He last accomplished that in 2007-08 with the Flyers. Is there a more consistent goal scorer in the NHL? Well, yes, Ovechkin to start. But still, Knuble’s last seven years: 30, 21, 34, 24, 29, 27, 27. Those first two, by the way, came in Boston.
Notable Quotable
Caps forward Alex Ovechkin on his first-period assist to teammate Nicklas Backstrom
“I saw [Boston defenseman Zdeno] Chara right away and I said ‘Oh, Jesus!’ I have to give pass and be ready to get hit. He hit me pretty hard, but it was a goal so I was happy.”
