Boston Bruins secure the victory and became dominant force
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| Boston Bruins secure the victory |
The Boston Bruins look to clinch the first round of the NHL Playoffs over the Washington Capitals in game five. The teams meet Sunday for the 13th time this season. It was as about as good of an effort from the Boston Bruins Friday night at the TD Garden to put the Washington Capitals in a 3-1 series hole.
Four goals from four different players, with three coming on the power play, but it was the effort in the defensive end that stuck out in the Bruins 4-1 victory, their third straight win in the series after losing Game 1 May 15 in overtime.
The Capitals are 36-15-5 against division opponents. Washington ranks fifth in the league recording 9 points per game, averaging 3.4 goals and 5.6 assists.
The Bruins are 33-16-7 against the rest of their division. Boston leads the league with nine shorthanded goals, led by Brad Marchand with four.
“Well, I can speak to our team, and we wanted it and it showed showed out there,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said after the victory. “We’ve talked about getting better all the time as we go along, and that includes the series [and] that includes period-to-period. We’re starting to see the results here.”
Gifted a power play less than a minute into the first period on a too-many-men penalty against an overeager B’s squad, the five-skater Capitals were outworked for every inch of ice by the four-skater Bruins. This quickly became a theme of the evening. Outshot by a staggering 11-to-4 mark in the first period (11-to-2 if you took out the Capitals’ shots on the man advantage), Washington failed to make the Bruins’ near-goals come back to bite ’em.
So here's the recap of the lines
TOP PERFORMERS: Alex Ovechkin leads the Capitals with 24 goals, adding 18 assists and recording 42 points. T.J. Oshie has five goals and two assists over the last 10 games for Washington.
Marchand has 69 total points while scoring 29 goals and totaling 40 assists for the Bruins. Taylor Hall has five goals and two assists over the last 10 games for Boston.
LAST 10 GAMES:
Capitals: 5-3-2, averaging 2.5 goals , 4.2 assists, 5.3 penalties and 15.9 penalty minutes while giving up 2.6 goals per game with a .916 save percentage.
Bruins: 6-2-2, averaging 3.1 goals , 5.2 assists, 3.6 penalties and 8.3 penalty minutes while giving up 2.2 goals per game with a .914 save percentage.
INJURIES:
Capitals: Michal Kempny: out (lower body).
Bruins: Ondrej Kase: day to day (upper body), Kevan Miller: day to day (undisclosed), Jeremy Lauzon: day to day (hand).
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