POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 4, Bruins 2

Three Dimes Down - At this time last week, the Caps were reeling from a pair of consecutive lopsided losses on home ice. How lopsided were they? Well, their 6-1 loss to Carolina on March 28 followed by a 5-1 defeat at the hands of Minnesota on April 3 marked only the second time in franchise history that the Caps yielded five or more goals against while scoring one or fewer goals in consecutive home games.

The first time that happened was 47 years ago at this time, late in Washington's first season in the NHL. That's the season they finished 8-67-5, still the worst single season record by any club in League history.
The 2021-22 Capitals are much better than that inaugural crew, but bad things happen to good teams, and a team's response to adversity is more an indicator of what it's made of than a couple of rare one-sided lashings in a row. Following those two rugged losses at home, the Caps faced a trio of Eastern Conference titans - Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh and Boston, respectively - with the first and last of those games at home and the last two of them played as back-to-backs in the afternoon.
Despite some ongoing lineup issues, the Caps took down the Lightning on Wednesday and the Penguins on Saturday. And on Sunday at Capital One Arena, they made it a clean sweep with a 4-2 victory over the Boston Bruins.
"It was a really good response from those two games," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "Certainly we were up front and said that those weren't the games that we wanted to play, and nobody was happy with it. Just the way we played the games, the decisions that we made with the puck, the competitiveness, the commitment to defense, all of that allows you to play good offense. And I thought we did a good job with that."
Lars Eller's goal at 7:18 of the third snapped a 2-2 tie and Alex Ovechkin netted his 45th goal of the season into a vacant Boston net in the final seconds to give the Caps their third straight win, all against playoff-bound Eastern Conference elites, teams that have combined for five Stanley Cup titles and eight Cup Final appearances in the last 11 seasons.
"This is obviously the type of hockey that we want to be playing against teams that are in the playoff hunt," says Caps center Nic Dowd. "And we're the same way. We're trying to move up in response and play for home ice. Things can change a lot in the last nine or 10 games, or whatever it is.
"With playoff hockey, there is such a difference between that and game one or game 20 [of the regular season]. And to prepare for that, it's beneficial to play teams like Boston and Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay. Those are tough games, and sometimes you can play great games against those teams and you don't come out with a win. But we played good hockey, our best players played well, and our goaltending was pretty good."
Dowd's point about the Caps' best players is a good one, too, and it's best illustrated by John Carlson's performance in the three-game stretch. Carlson had multi-point games in all three contests, totaling three goals and eight points in the three games. Carlson scored the game's first goal on Sunday against Boston and added a helper on Ovechkin's goal. He had two goals and two assists against the Lightning, and a pair of assists against Pittsburgh.
On Monday afternoon, Carlson was named the NHL's Second Star for the week ending April 10.
Fifty Mission Cap - A day after he supplied the game-winning goal in a 6-3 victory over the Penguins in Pittsburgh, Caps winger Tom Wilson scored the game-tying tally late in the second period of Sunday's game against the Bruins. In the process, Wilson established a single-season career high of 23 goals this season, and he also notched his 50th point of the campaign, also a career best.
"He's been really strong the entire year," says Laviolette of Wilson. "I know he's on a good run right now; I think that happens. There's the really good moments through course of the year and then there's some plateaus or whatever, but he's been pretty consistent with the way he plays the game.
"He puts a lot of work into his game, a lot of energy, a lot of passion. He gets rewarded by doing the right things - going to the net, driving wide on somebody. He does it all for us, but it's nice to see him get rewarded with some points and to have a year like he's having."
The Great Eight Update - Ovechkin's empty-net goal was the 100th goal he has scored in the month of April over the course of his NHL career, and he now joins Wayne Gretzky as the only player in NHL history with at least 100 goals in seven different months: October, November., December, January, February, March and April.
Additionally, Ovechkin surpasses Gordie Howe (44 goals at age 40 in 1968-69) for the second-most goals ever scored in a season by a player aged 36 or older. Ovechkin's sights are now set on record holder Teemu Selanne, who scored 48 goals at the age of 36 in 2006-07.
Blueline Bonanza - Paced primarily by Carlson's week of offensive wreckage, the Caps' blueline corps contributed at least a goal and at least three points to each of the team's victories during the course of its current three-game winning streak. Washington defensemen totaled six goals and a dozen points in the last three games.
When the Caps have their top six defensemen healthy and intact in the lineup this season, they are 27-8-9. When they are missing one or more of those players for any reason, they are just 13-14-1.
Killing Floor - Boston was the beneficiary of each of the game's first four power plays on Sunday, and the Caps were able to successfully snuff out each of them. Washington limited the Bruins to just three shots on net in eight minutes with the man advantage.
"It's all the little things," says Laviolette of the Caps' penalty killing outfit. "It's the details of how you execute the system, it's when to be smart with your reads, it's when to be aggressive, it's blocking shots, it's defending the neutral zone. There's a lot of different things that go into it, and it's the small things on a penalty kill that can make it successful."
Over their last seven games, the Caps have been successful on 19 of their 20 penalty killing assignments for an impressive kill rate of 95 percent. On the season, the Caps rank 11th in the NHL with a kill rate of 81.5%.
Down On The Farm - For the second time in as many evenings, the AHL Hershey Bears hosted the Springfield Thunderbirds on Sunday at Giant Center. And for the second time in as many nights, the Bears skated to victory, this one a 3-2 overtime triumph over the T-Birds.
Hershey jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on Shane Gersich's 14th goal of the season - from Cody Franson and Garrett Pilon - at the 36-second mark of the first frame. The Bears were able to double that advantage when Mason Morelli notched his 10th of the season at 15:42 of the first, getting help from Pilon and goaltender Zach Fucale.
But the T-Birds slowly clawed their way back into the contest, getting a goal late in the second and late in the third to force overtime. That set the stage for Morelli's game-winner at 2:04 of the extra session, with Gersich and Alex Alexeyev supplying the helpers.
Morelli's two-goal game helped make a winner out of Fucale, who stopped 24 of 26 shots to improve to 11-13-4 on the season.
The 33-27-5-4 Bears will be idle until Wednesday when they hit the road to take on the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
By The Numbers - Carlson led the Caps with 25:02 in ice time … Ovechkin led the Caps with six shots on net, nine shot attempts, and seven hits … Justin Schultz led the Capitals with five blocked shots, and 15 different Caps skaters combined to block 25 Boston shots in the game … The Caps combined to deliver 45 hits in Sunday's game, matching their single-game best for the season to date (March 28 vs. Carolina). Sixteen of Washington's 18 skaters delivered at least one bodycheck in Sunday's game.