Undermanned Bruins thumped by Capitals, 8-1

A key injury or two can often give a team a laser focus, causing it to rise above their circumstances to achieve short-term success.

Then there was the situation the Bruins found themselves in Sunday night, when all the undermanned B’s worst fears came true.

With their four best defensemen (Charlie McAvoy, Matt Grzelcyk, Brandon Carlo and Kevan Miller) on the shelf, the B’s took a major beating at the hands of the Washington Capitals in a game that felt over midway through the first period, losing 8-1 at the Garden.

As shorthanded as the B’s were, they did themselves no favors, taking too many penalties, and the Caps made them pay with three power-play goals.

The B’s can only hope an injured player or two will return for Tuesday’s game against Buffalo or they’ll have their hands full with the stress-free Sabres, who did the B’s the favor of beating the Flyers on Sunday.

Right off the bat, it looked like the B’s knew they would need some sort of intangible vibe to have a chance in this one. Off the opening faceoff, Chris Wagner gamely dropped the gloves with Brendan Dillon, giving away about four inches and 20 pounds and surely trying to inspire his teammates off the hop.

And they would get the first power play of the game just 27 seconds in on an Evgeny Kuznetsov slash. Coach Bruce Cassidy gave rookie Jack Ahcan, in his second NHL game, a chance to run the top PP unit and it looked predictably out of sync. The fact that David Pastrnak remains searching for his long lost game did not help either. Cassidy had moved him back to the top line with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, presumably to help him shake off whatever’s been slowing him down, but even his old line could not provide the boost he needs.

When Sean Kuraly took an obvious interference penalty after losing his stick at 5:49, it all started to fall apart.

In the waning seconds of the PP, T.J. Oshie beat Daniel Vladar with a sharp short-side wrister from the bumper spot.

Then, just 16 seconds later, Lars Eller made it 2-0. Carl Hagelin gathered a loose puck along the right boards and drew Ahcan to him before dishing to a rushing Eller, who left Anton Blidh standing still and roofed a shot over Vladar’s glove arm.

The Caps made it 3-0 at 9:42. Steven Kampfer left Conor Sheary all alone off the rush and Dmitry Orlov found him wide open and he beat Vladar for the commanding lead.

Sheary stretched the Washington to lead to 4-0 at 4:41 with another PP goal. With Craig Smith in the box for hooking, Vladar made several high-quality saves but, after a Washington icing, the Caps scored off the rush, with Sheary roofing a rebound.

Nic Dowd scored a long-range goal that Vladar should have stopped and then Tom Wilson added the Caps third power-play goal to give the Caps a half dozen before the second period was done.

Craig Smith added a power-play goal early in the third, but there was no way they were going to climb their way out of the natural disaster-level sinkhole they had created for themselves. And to drive that point home, Oshie gave the Caps their six-goal cushion back with his second of the game, and then Eller added his second of the game to really leave a mark.

By that point, all the B’s could do was take the L, move on and hope some better health – and maybe some help by Monday’s trade deadline – was awaiting them.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3a3e72B