The Bruins may have played better games in their seven-game road losing streak than they did Saturday in Washington, D.C. But results are all that matters at this time of the year and the B\u2019s got the result they needed, finally.<\/p>\n
Fraser Minten was the only player to score in a nine-round shootout to lift the B\u2019s to a 3-2 victory over the Capitals and grab two important points in their first road win since Jan. 17.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Swayman was excellent, making 25 saves in regulation and overtime and then all nine Capital shooters in the skills competition to complete the season sweep over the Caps. The win was the 26th of the season for Swayman, the most he\u2019s recorded in his career.<\/p>\n
It was the start of a three-game trip that will take them to New Jersey and Montreal for a back-to-back on Monday and Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just one shot at a time. It\u2019s fun to win games like that at this stage of the year,\u201d Swayman told reporters in Washington. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly how we wanted to start this road trip off, with a win. We know how big these points are. So no matter how it gets done, that\u2019s all we care about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlie McAvoy, also having the best season of his career despite all the facial injuries big and small, scored both goals for the B\u2019s, both of which erased one-goal deficits. The B\u2019s never led until Minten\u2019s slick backhander beat Logan Thompson for the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a great fight by us to stay in the game and Sway keeping us in it and making some huge saves. Just resilient,\u201d McAvoy said.<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s power-play woes continued as they went 0-for-4, including an anemic 5-on-3 and a PP at the end of the regulation that bled into OT. They are now 4-for-32 on the PP since the Olympic break. But their penalty kill did come up big, killing all three penalties, two of which came in the final six minutes of regulation.<\/p>\n
Rasmus Sandin broke a 1-1 tie at 3:12 of the third period. Tanner Jeannot tried to play the puck to himself along the boards but it went right to Sandin, who let a quick shot fly. It appeared that both Jeannot and Elias Lindholm deflected it with their sticks and found the upper corner over Swayman\u2019s blocker arm.<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s were given the gift of a 39-second 5-on-3 but they never managed to even get a shot off, turning the puck over several times.<\/p>\n
But the B\u2019s tied it on McAvoy\u2019s second goal of the game at 10:09. After the B\u2019s won the puck battle in the corner,\u00a0 McAvoy went to the net to tip home Pavel Zacha\u2019s point shot past Thompson.<\/p>\n
Then things got hairy. Nikita Zadorov was called for boarding with 5:54 left in regulation and, six seconds into the kill, they could have been down two men when Mark Kastelic\u2019s clear went over the glass. It was ruled that it deflected off the kick plate and that was proven to be the right call. The B\u2019s managed to kill off the Zadorov minor.<\/p>\n
But then Hampus Lindholm was called for holding Justin Sourdif to prevent a Grade-A scoring chance with 3:20 left in regulation and they were able to kill that as well.<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s got a power play of their own on a bad Connor McMichael interference penalty with 1:15 left in the third but they couldn\u2019t capitalize in regulation, nor on the 4-on-3 in OT. Once McMichael came back, there was no stoppage in play so the balance of the OT was played out in a scoreless 4-on-4.<\/p>\n
Then Swayman outlasted Thompson in the shootout to nail down the second point.<\/p>\n
Bruins coach Marco Sturm made some pretty sizable line changes to start the game, plugging in rookie center Minten between David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie to try and coax more production out of his big guns. Subsequently, Elias Lindholm was dropped to center a third line with Jeannot and Marat Khusnutdinov while Mikey Eyssimont took Jeannot\u2019s spot on the fourth line with Sean Kuraly and Kastelic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought (Minten) was good,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cThey were never really in trouble, that line. They scored a big goal (McAvoy\u2019s first). He was good on net-front there. Overall, I didn\u2019t mind him playing with David.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Minten: \u201cI\u2019ve had reps with those guys at different points through the year so it\u2019s not too tough to fit in there. They\u2019re really elite players and I just want to keep doing what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The moves didn\u2019t lead to immediate offense for the B\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The two teams played a scoreless first period with the Caps getting the better of the chances. Swayman was forced to make several good saves, the best of which was his denial of Timothy Liljegren\u2019s one-timer from the middle of the slot.<\/p>\n
The Caps held a 9-7 shot advantage and the hosts were gaining momentum late in the period.<\/p>\n
It took Washington just 1:15 into the second period, thanks to a mistake by Khusnutdinov. The young Russian lost his stick and headed to the bench. With the long change in the second, that gave right defenseman Matt Roy plenty of room to walk down from the point and blast a shot off the post and in.<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s got their first PP early in the second and it nearly blew up on them. Pastrnak was tripped by Aleksei Protas trying to break out of his own zone and it was egregiously let go by the officials. That eventually led to a clean break-in by Sandin and it looked like he had Swayman beaten. But the netminder extended his right pad for the save and kept it a one-goal game.<\/p>\n
Swayman stoned Sandin again at 9:25 when he had an open look from the bottom of the left circle but he couldn\u2019t beat Swayman with the wrister.<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s finally got a decent scoring chance when Pastrnak and Geekie had a 2-on-1 with about 11 minutes gone in the second. Pastrnak\u2019s pass didn\u2019t get through but he pounced on the loose puck and forced Thompson to make an excellent pad save.<\/p>\n
But they did even it up at 11:57 on an ugly goal from McAvoy. Pastrnak\u2019s pass was not in McAvoy\u2019s one-timer wheelhouse but he manage to send a knuckling shot toward the net. Thanks to a Minten screen, Thompson never saw it and the puck made it through for McAvoy\u2019s eighth of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is March hockey, and they\u2019re not pretty goals anymore,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to work for it. They\u2019re all garbage goals, it\u2019s what I call them. If you look at the last three or four games, that\u2019s how we score in this league. We just have to pay the price to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n
McAvoy had to get the shot off awkwardly from his front foot, but it landed in its desired destination.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe just a friendly reminder to myself to just shoot the puck,\u201d McAvoy said.<\/p>\n
Like that goal, the B\u2019s game wasn\u2019t pretty. But it worked.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bruins may have played better games in their seven-game road losing streak than they did Saturday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,2154,5,156,4,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-504027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-bruins","8":"tag-boston","9":"tag-boston-bruins","10":"tag-bostonbruins","11":"tag-bruins","12":"tag-charlie-mcavoy","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-jeremy-swayman","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-washington-capitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116231012558100668","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}