Despite having to kill off a double minor penalty in the final four minutes of overtime, the Boston Bruins hang on to force the shootout and win against the Washington Capitals.
Despite having to kill off a double minor penalty in the final four minutes of overtime, the Boston Bruins hang on to force the shootout and win against the Washington Capitals.
WASHINGTON – After 65 minutes of hockey and four rounds of a shootout, the Boston Bruins remained deadlocked 2-2 with the Washington Capitals.
Kevin Shattenkirk was given the keys for Boston’s fifth shot. He looped behind the right circle into the slot, and snapped the puck past Capitals goalie Charlie Lindgren’s glove side. Capitals forward Connor McMichael missed at the other end, with Jeremy Swayman making the final save, and the Bruins secured the 3-2 shootout win.
Hampus Lindholm and Johnny Beecher scored in regulation for the Bruins, which improved to 43-17-15. Swayman made 18 saves.
After he was scratched for the past three games, Shattenkirk returned to the lineup, and he had an idea he might get picked in the shootout based on Bruins goalie coach Bob Essensa’s scouting report. With that in mind, he paid close attention to Jake DeBrusk’s attempt and found all he needed to win the game.
“[Lindgren] seemed to drop that glove a little bit, so I stuck to my normal move and my normal route,” Shattenkirk said. “Just saw that that was open and just tried to shoot it, made sure I beat it to that glove side.”
It didn’t look like the Bruins would make it to the shootout at all after Lindholm was assessed a double minor just 57 seconds into overtime with a high stick catching Capitals forward TJ Oshie in the face.
Over the four-minute, 4-on-3 penalty kill, Swayman made four saves while the men in front of him blocked four shots – all by Alex Ovechkin – to fend off a Washington team hungry for points and force the shootout.
“I think it’s just our three working harder than their [four],” Swayman said. “I think the whole day, the team did a great job hounding pucks, keeping pucks below their red line, and at the end of the day our penalty kill came up with a win.”
Said Lindholm: “We really came together there in the end. That was a tough, tough minor penalty, but seeing the guys put their body on the line like that, we’re gonna need that down the stretch so it’s really fun to see.”
In a low-event first period, Lindholm opened the scoring at 18:47 with a shot through traffic from the left point.
The Capitals tied it at 1:20 of the second period, after Nick Jensen’s stretch pass to Michael Sgarbossa during a Bruins line change gave the 31-year-old forward all the time and space behind the defense to beat Swayman from the right side of the zone.
Just over a minute later, Beecher regained the lead for Boston. Dylan Strome’s pass attempt deflected off Beecher’s skate blade and up ice, and the rookie forward jetted past a diving Strome for a breakaway, which he finished five-hole.
“I was just trying to hold the dot line there in the D-zone,” Beecher said. “That’s just part of our process and he tried slipping it through, it hit my foot and I was just able to get a step on him.”
In his 1,000th NHL game, Capitals defenseman John Carlson tied it 2-2 on the power play at 14:03 of the second period, finishing off Max Pacioretty’s feed to the back door.
The Bruins outshot Washington 9-5 in the third period, but neither side broke through in regulation. Boston moves on to face the Nashville Predators on Tuesday.
“That’s playoff hockey,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “We’ve been seeing it a lot lately. … I thought both teams were very responsible, like getting above pucks. That’s why there wasn’t a lot of shots. There just wasn’t a lot of plays to make because people were above you. It was pretty physical out there.”
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