Logan Thompson was in midseason form with 28 saves, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Caps from falling 3-2 to the Bruins in a shootout in Boston on Sunday afternoon. The game was the opener of the four-game preseason slate for both teams.
Twice the Caps forged a one-goal lead, and twice the Bruins squared the score. The second time they did so was on a Charlie McAvoy center point drive with Boston goaltender Michael DiPietro (30 saves, including eight in overtime, four of them on a Washington power play) pulled for an extra attacker.
McAvoy’s tying marker came with 1:43 left in the third period, forcing overtime. Both Boston goals came within five seconds of a face-off win in Washington ice.
In the shootout, Boston’s James Hagens scored the lone goal to put the B’s in the win column.
Although they without a shot on net for most of a full, two-minute 5-on-3 power play in the first period, the Caps held the puck in the Boston zone for virtually the entire two minutes. They moved the puck well, they had some good looks – including five shot attempts that missed the mark and two more that were blocked – but didn’t test DiPietro until the final half minute of the man advantage.
The Caps put a couple pucks on DiPietro, and he stopped them both, taking the penalty clock down to its final six seconds. Washington made the most of those last six seconds, getting a left dot face-off win from Josh Dunne to keep the heat on. When DiPietro stopped an Ivan Miroshnichenko tip of a Cole Hutson shot, Dunne went after the loose puck behind the B’s net as the penalty clock expired. Dunne fed Miroshnichenko in the right corner, and the latter issued a perfect feed through to the left circle, where Jonny Brodzinski fired a one-timer home for a 1-0 Caps lead at 8:48 of the first, four seconds after the power play expired.
“That’s perfect,” says Brodzinski of the Miroshnichenko feed. “I knew it was coming, so as soon as [Dunne] got that puck and fired it over to him, I just kind of found that soft spot behind the defenseman. And then as soon as we locked eyes, I knew it was getting over.”
Washington went shorthanded soon after, and Thompson made a pair of saves to help quell that uprising. Vincent Desharnais laid a pair of heavy hits during the kill, and Anthony Beauvillier did yeoman’s work with no stick, kicking the puck to Dylan McIlrath who did the rest, clearing the zone.
Thompson was sharp early, stopping all seven shots in the opening period. He stopped James Hagens off the rush in the game’s first minute, and he made his best stop of the frame minutes later when Lukas Reichel got a good look from the slot in the immediate wake of a Boston face-off win in the offensive zone.
“All things considered, I think that's probably the perfect preseason game you want to see,” says Thompson. I had a kind of a little bit everything, five-on-three, some big penalty kills, and the shootout. From my standpoint, I think I got touches in every area I want to.
“So yeah, it was fun to be back with the group, and we’ll just build.”
The Caps started the middle period by killing the lion’s share of a carryover penalty, but they rarely found themselves in the offensive zone thereafter, especially at 5-on-5. Washington began taking on water in the middle minutes of the frame, leading to a Boston power play with 6:28 left.
The Caps handled the first 114 seconds with aplomb, getting a McIlrath block and a Thompson glove save on Mason Lohrei from center point, only to see the Bruins knot the score in the waning seconds of the advantage. Boston won the last offensive zone draw with six ticks on the penalty clock, and Jake Schmaltz scored from the slot, converting a nifty feed from Riley Duran, who dished from behind the Washington net.
The Caps were held without a shot on net for more than nine minutes in the middle of the middle period and they managed just two shots at 5-on-5 in the frame, a 40-footer from Boone Jenner and 61-foot point drive from McIlrath, both in the front half of the frame.
Thompson faced a number of difficult chances from in tight – a couple of them on tips or deflections – in the minutes leading up to the Schmaltz goal.
The Caps played better and found their footing in the offensive zone more frequently in the third, and Miroshnichenko restored the Washington lead on a goalmouth scramble at 5:34 of the third. The Caps second goal also came just four seconds after the expiration of a Washington power play.
Washington had three more power plays after the Miroshnichenko goal, two of which came after McAvoy’s late game-tying goal.
“I thought it was okay at times,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of his team’s special teams performance in the opener. “I thought our kill did a real good job. Obviously, on that five on three in the third period gives us a chance to win the game, but then there were some other parts not so good.
“The five-on-six, nothing really we can do. I mean, trying to get out there a little bit quicker on McAvoy's [one-timer], but I thought it was maybe a little bit of a microcosm of the whole night, just a little bit ugly in all facets.
“Thankfully it's preseason. We'll learn, we'll take the film from it. We'll learn from some stuff, and we'll just continue to build and get better.”
