Caps Fall on Late PPG, 4-3

Eight months after they tangled in a first-round playoff series together last spring, the Caps and the Bruins renewed acquaintances again on Thursday night in Boston, playing a grueling, grinding game in which players from both sides were lost to injury before game's end.

Charlie McAvoy's power-play goal from the slot snapped a 3-3 tie and swung the 4-3 decision to the Bruins with 45 seconds remaining in regulation.
At night's end, this was a special teams loss for Washington. The Caps were 0-for-4 with the extra man, and they didn't generate a shot on net in the last three of their opportunities. Boston went 2-for-3, scoring their first and last goals on the man advantage.
"The power play and the penalty kill, we talked about it coming in here, and into the game," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "They were top 10 [in the League] in both, and it could have been the difference in the game. We need a little bit more."
For the second time in as many meetings with Boston this season and this month, the Caps scored first and they scored early. Evgeny Kuznetsov made a brilliant play to end Washington's last game in overtime, and he picked up right where he left off on Thursday in Boston.
After taking a feed from Alex Ovechkin, Kuznetsov fired an absolute dart of a shot over the right shoulder of Boston goalie Linus Ullmark, doing so from a tight angle, from the very bottom of the left circle at 4:07 of the first. Kuznetsov's goal came on Washington's first shot on net of the night.

Less than a minute later, the Bruins evened the score at 1-1. David Pastrnak and Taylor Hall combined on a give-and-go play off the rush, with the latter feeding the former for a virtual empty net strike just 50 seconds after Kuznetsov's goal, at 4:57.
Washington had two power plays in the first, generating some decent looks on the first and nothing to speak of on the second. Boston's Anton Blidh left the game late in the first after taking a hard hit from Tom Wilson during the second Caps man advantage of the period.
Boston took the lead on its first power play of the game, just ahead of the midpoint of the middle period. With Garnet Hathaway in the box for interference on Brad Marchand, who left the game with an upper body injury soon afterwards, the Bruins put some continuous heat on the Caps in their end. The Caps were finally able to gain possession, and they went off on a shorthanded foray into Boston ice. But when Kuznetsov's shot missed the net and bounded off the glass, Matt Grzelcyk quickly collected it and sent Pastrnak off on a breakaway. The Boston winger deked and tucked the puck under Vanecek's pad to make it a 2-1 game at 8:37.
In the back half of the second, the Caps' fourth power play of the night again produced no shots on net, the third successive advantage to result in a goose egg. Worse for Washington, Jake DeBrusk tore off on a breakaway from the Boston line, and the Caps needed a big stop from Vanecek. They got it, and that save looked even bigger when the Caps - who had been quiet offensively for most of the middle period - managed to get the equalizer less than a minute after the key save.
Connor McMichael sent Lars Eller into the Boston zone along the left-wing wall. From the left dot, Eller let go of a high, hard shot. It might have gone over the net if left untouched, but Ullmark tried to glove it down, and it caught leather and went in, tying the game at 2-2 with 3:48 left in the second.

Despite being held without a shot on net for more than a dozen minutes in the middle of the middle period - a stretch that included a pair of Washington power plays - the Caps were able to go into the third all even, but without defenseman Nick Jensen. He departed with an upper body injury, leaving the Caps without three of their top four blueliners, as John Carlson and Dmitry Orlov didn't suit up.
Washington had four power plays to just one for Boston in the game's first 40 minutes. As is so often the case, the power play pendulum swung in the other direction in the third period. Kuznetsov went off for slashing at 5:17, and the Caps killed off that minor without incident.
They ran into trouble near the midway mark of the frame when Kuznetsov inadvertently put the puck on his own net, and it wobbled over the goal line just a split second before Trevor van Riemsdyk swept it away. Play continued briefly, but off-ice officials stopped the play and conducted a review, and the go-ahead goal was credited to DeBrusk at 9:41, putting the Bruins up 3-2.
The Capitals bounced right back when Nicklas Backstrom netted his first goal of the season at 10:17 of the third, just 36 seconds after Boston regained the lead. Aliaksei Protas and Wilson combined on a good forecheck, with Wilson coming up with the puck and feeding Backstrom in front. The veteran pivot scored from the inside of the right circle to make it a 3-3 game.

"It was a good forecheck by Pro and Tom there," says Backstrom. "We knew if we were going to forecheck like that, eventually they were going to turn it over, and [Wilson] made a nice feed there in the middle. I was just trying to pick a spot, and luckily it went in."
With 2:34 left, Nic Dowd was boxed for tripping B's blueliner Derek Forbort. The Caps weren't able to navigate their way through this one, as Boston dented them for two power-play goals for the second time in 11 nights. After taking a pass from DeBrusk, McAvoy fired it home, leaving the Caps with their sixth loss in eight games (2-4-2) since the turn of the calendar.
"It's really tough," says Backstrom. "It would have been nice to just get a point out of it at least, but it happens. We've got to learn from it and move on."