Chara, Capitals best Bruins in shootout

The Bruins had to settle for one point — and zero style points — as they lost 2-1 to the Washington Capitals at the Garden on Wednesday night in a bona fide snoozefest.

Jakub Vrana was the only player to score in a shootout as Vitek Vanecek stoned Jake DeBrusk, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand to give the Caps the extra point.

Tuukka Rask made two tremendous saves in overtime, the first on Dmitry Orlov and the second on Nicklas Backstrom, keeping the B’s alive until the shootout, but Vrana beat him on the Caps’ first try in the skills competition and Washington didn’t even need its third shooter to take the second point in the contest.

The Bruins broke the ice on a brutally tight-checking game at 1:19 of the third period. Marchand stole the puck from John Carlson at the right point in the Bruins’ zone and took off. Picking up Pastrnak streaking down the side and creating a two-on-one, Marchand fed him perfectly for his 10th of the year.

But the Caps tied it at 6:14 on a self-inflicted Bruins wound. Sean Kuraly collected a loose puck behind his net and had time and space to operate, but his soft, cross-zone pass intended for Anders Bjork was picked off by T.J. Oshie. Eventually a rebound off a blocked shot squirted out to Lars Eller at the side of the net and he was able to slip it behind Rask from a tough angle.

A four-on-four occurred with 5:30 left in regulation when a mini-feud that had been percolating between Trent Frederic and Alex Ovechkin boiled over. After a check, Frederic gave Ovechkin a cross-check, to which Ovechkin responded with a stick to Frederic’s groin. The crimes did not seem equal, but the punishment was — two minutes apiece. But neither team scored on the extra ice.

The game marked the first time back to the Garden for former Bruins captain Zdeno Chara since signing with Washington. Normally, a packed house would have given a returning hero the likes of Chara a full-throated welcome back. But the building was empty — fans will not be allowed back in until March 23 — and Chara’s teammates, old and new, took up the task, banging their sticks against the boards when a fan-themed video was played on the center scoreboard during the first TV timeout.

The Caps held an edge in play in the scoreless first period.

The Capitals did have one taken off the board at 10:51, however. Carlson chipped a puck into the B’s zone from the red line with Oshie and new Bruin Jarred Tinordi in hot pursuit. The puck bounced back to Oshie and he moved it into open ice to Richard Panik. Panik subsequently passed it back to Tinordi for an Oshie tap-in. But B’s coach Bruce Cassidy challenged that Oshie was in the zone before the aerial pass and the video review ruled in his favor. No goal.

The B’s did not get their first official shot on net until a long DeBrusk shot into the gut of Vanecek, though that streak of futility was slightly misleading. Pastrnak had a clean breakaway earlier in the first but he hit the post to Vanecek’s left, before the puck bounced off the goalie’s back and hit the same post, trickling wide.

Rask was forced to make a big stop on a Tom Wilson redirect early in the game, but the Caps, who had a 7-2 shot advantage, didn’t get much by way of quality chances themselves

Play started to get a little testy near the end of the first period. The Caps had their second power play nullified when Ovechkin collided with Charlie McAvoy at the Bruins blue line. Both players were shaken up but stayed in the game, with Ovechkin taking his rightful seat in the penalty box for interference.

The four-on-four expired with no damage done, but after a minor fracas in the Bruins end, the B’s would get a power play with 10 seconds left in the period after Panik took a run at Chris Wagner from behind, earning an interference penalty.

The man-advantage did not do much to get the B’s going to start the second as both teams settled into a tight-checking game that produced few scoring chances.

The B’s top line did have one good shift that had the Caps pinned down in their zone and Patrice Bergeron nearly had a tap-in but had his stick lifted at the last second.

The B’s held a 7-4 shot advantage in the second, but most of the rubber that made its way to both goaltenders came on shots from a comfortable distance.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3beM29f