The Bruins' hopes of creating their first three game winning streak of the calendar year were dashed on Saturday afternoon by the visiting Washington Capitals, as they fell 4-3 on home ice.
Powered by two goals in each of the first two periods, the Capitals received contributions from every corner of their lineup during Saturday's vitally important victory. In the first, it was Alex Semin and Matt Hendricks who would give Washington an early 2-0 lead.
The B's would fight back late in the period after Claude Julien made perfect use of his timeout, accounting for 10 of the game's next 11 shots on goal.
"That’s not the start we wanted, as soon as we called the timeout it was like night and day. We realize that we are going to play and once we realized that I thought we played good hockey." -- Johnny Boychuk
Boston would finally get on the board with only five seconds left in the opening frame, when a Milan Lucic wrister snuck through Tomas Vokoun. With all the momentum on their side, the B's would even the score at around the five minute mark of the second when Brad Marchand capitalized on a breakway chance after some tough forechecking from Jordan Caron.
“Jordan made a great play to force Ovechkin and make him throw the puck away, it kind of bounced of the defenseman’s shin pad in open ice and I went in and tried to make a move, the five-hole opened up and I slid it in.” -- Brad Marchand
Unfortunately for the 17,565 Black and Gold supporters that packed into TD Garden on Saturday, the Caps would quickly recover, adding two more goals (Jay Beagle, Brooks Laich) before the buzzer sounded to end the second period.
The B's would once again take control during the third and final period, outshooting the Capitals by a 13-2 margin. However, the Bruins were only able to tickle the twine once in the third, falling just short in a 4-3 defeat at the hands of the Capitals.
The Black and Gold will be back at it tomorrow afternoon with a showdown in Pittsburgh against Evgeni Malkin and the Penguins.
"I mean they’re still a great team (without Sidney Crosby) They have a lot of depth even with him out of the lineup. They’re right there in the standings – it’s another team that we could face in the playoffs as well." -- Mike Mottau