Washington 2, Bruins 1: Holtby unbeatable, Caps win PP battle
Holtby
The Bruins set a Washington opponent’s record with 45 shots on net in a non-overtime playoff game, and were credited with an astounding 83 shot attempts.
And they’re still coming home with their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series with the Capitals tied 2-2.
Washington rookie goaltender Braden Holtby made 44 saves and the Caps blocked 26 shots in tonight’s Game 4 to even up the series with a 2-1 victory. Holtby now has a 1.60 goals-against average and .953 save percentage through four games of this series.
Game 5 is Saturday afternoon at TD Garden.
▪Rich Peverley scored the lone Bruins’ goal 13:12 into the first period to tie the game. He now has goals in consecutive games. However, he scored the goal while the Bruins were in between lines changes and was on the ice with Daniel Paille and Gregory Campbell, who assisted on the goal. So the Bruins still do not have any production from their top two lines in this series. In the third period, head coach Claude Julien flipped Milan Lucic and Brad Marchand, to no avail.
▪Zdeno Chara and Tyler Seguin were the Bruins’ leaders in shots on net with six apiece. Somehow David Krejci failed to register a shot on net in 17:31 of ice time.
Chara was also the team leader in attempts blocked with five.
▪Alexander Semin scored the game-winning goal with 1:17 left in the second period. The goal came on a power play after a questionable hooking call on Patrice Bergeron. However, momentum turned the Capitals’ way on an earlier power play in the period after a Johnny Boychuk hooking penalty was unnecessary with Troy Brouwer pursuing the puck to the corner with his back to the Boston net.
Washington’s power play is now 2-for-12 in this series.
▪It too the Bruins until the third period to get a power play, but the results were the same – no goal and not even a shot on net on their one attempt. Boston is now 0-for-12 in the series. Washington has killed off 39 of its last 41 shorthanded situations dating back 16 games.
Benoit Pouliot was back on the power play to provide a net-front presence, but that didn’t work.
▪Marcus Johansson scored the game’s first goal 1:22 in on the first shot on net of the night. The Caps then went more than 11 minutes before their next shot on goal. Boston outshot Washington, 14-3, in the first period but went to the dressing room tied at 1.
w/ Fleury, it should come as no surprise. They still refer to him as St Patrick here in Montreal. I’m assuming Fleury grew up idolizing Roy.
With Price, and I’ve seen him play a lot, I don’t see him hot dog with the glove save too much.
He’s a great hot dog when he wins a shootout though (which wasn’t very often this year). My favorites were the Ussain Bolt pose and the folded arms across his chest pose. Cracked me up!
The calls and non-calls went both ways in that game. Hard for me to blame the refs. How about Pouliot’s stick to Green’s face early on? Green embellished but still–no call when there should have been one. The problem, as always, it seems, is the Bs inability to capitalize (get it?) on the PP. They tried Chara up front last year and I don’t remember that helping out a whole lot either. On the other hand, I noticed they had two 4-4 goals in the previous game. Maybe the strategy should be to rough someone the moment they get a PP.
Meanwhile, putting the original merlot line back together is an interesting concept. Interesting, but worrisome. I love Paille, but we might be in trouble if he is the answer as one of our top lines’ wingers.
RD, I did notice Holtby’s glove hand flair. But then again, I see a lot of that out of Fleury and Price too.
Chara plays enough minutes and takes enough of a beating during the course of a game, he doesn’t need to be standing in front of the net, not like he’s got the hands to bury any loose pucks anyway. Plus he led the team in PPG’s during the season, you want to take that shot off the point? No thanks.
Ovechkin didn’t tackle Ference, Ference undercut Ovechkin to keep him from getting to the puck.. A puck Ference had no business pinching on. Another poor decision was Chara trying to protect Ference’s bad pinch instead of letting a winger go after puck while he got into position to defend the 2 on 1. Left Rolston as the only guy back, who broke the cardinal rule of defending 2 on 1 and played the shot instead of the pass. It was hard to watch.
Dear Claude it is my yearly playoff wish. Will you please put Z in front of the net on power plays please. He is 6’9 and it would take two defenders to try and move him out or draw another penalty perhaps? Why will you not try this ? Rolston, Boychuck,Seidberg,ference can all work the point. Hell I would camp both Looch and charra in front ? Then Seguin or Marchand could skate all around with all of that open room and score.
[...] tied 2-2. Washington rookie goaltender Braden Holtby made 44 saves and the Caps blocked 26 [...] The Bruins BlogRelated [...]
Major line changes today at practice:
Lucic-Krejci-Rolston
Paille-Bergeron-Peverly
Pouliot-Kelly-Seguin
Marchand-Campbell-Thornton
Lucic, Seguin and Marchand: The Playoffs just called and asked if you’d like to attend.
Im a big Caps fan in the DC area and I like to check out the opposing blogs to get an idea of the fans reaction to tight games. Its been a good series and I think will have an exciting ending.
Good luck to all.
Did the refs not notice Ovechkin tackle Ference setting up an odd man rush for the Capitals first goal?
Stu and Nick
I think if your going to take someone out, it would probably be Rolstan. He didn’t play badly, but they do need someone who will stand on the crease. However, I don’t know of anyone who has played bad enough to deserve to be a healthy scratch. On the flip side, I think Caron was playing well when he became the odd-man out and became a healthy scratch. The B’s have to come out and play as physical as they did game one.
It blows me away that their PP has started out 0-12 so far, and it looks just as bad as last year. Obviously they found a way to beat the Habs without a PP goal but it took an overtime goal in game 7 to do it. The Bruins literally could be up 3-1 or swept the Caps if they had 2 PP goals. It is incredibly frustrating to watch.
I really think they need to put the lines back to how they were most of the season, the top 2 lines have accomplished nothing offensively. Seguin and Lucic bother me the most because everyone else kills penalties and they don’t have too, so really they have contributed the least in my eyes.
Lastly, it looks like 2 days of the Caps organization working over the NHL over the officiating paid off for them. I thought Ovechkin tackled Ference on the first goal and Bergeron’s penalty was a joke. Anyone else think on the first goal that it should have been called a hand pass?….I thought Ference hit the puck with his hand and the Bruins made first contact.
Imagine how mad you guys would have been if a goal was called back at the end of the game because the time keeper missed 5.3 seconds at the end.
btw, Holtby make me think of a yound Roy the way he lifts that glove in a huge showboating arc when he catches one.
Maybe Claude should play last year’s Montage for the team before the game tomorrow to get them all fired up. Got that brings tears of excitement to me with every single listen. Get’s me so damn amped to! Here it is for those who haven’t heard it. I personally love the Toucher and Rich one the most, Enjoy!
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/06/17/the-sports-hub-bruins-stanley-cup-montages/
What was good was they got a bunch of shots. It was bad though that my friend and I yelled at the TV for the bruins to take more shots…until they showed us that in fact what felt like 2 shots was actually 10. They just aren’t forcing their way in. They need to unbalance Washington with a couple good rushes. I feel like if Krecji is useless again, give Seguin or Peverly the center slot and let Caron play a game, if the bruins go down a game in the series. Marchand and Seguin have had more and better chances than Krecji this series, which means they all each had a chance to score. at least benney and the vets look good.
Both second period calls on Boychuk and Bergy were absolute abortions. I mean this isn’t peewee hockey zebras. The first call on Boychuck in my mind was the game changer even though they scored on the Bergy penalty. Up to Boychuk’s, the B’s were completely dominant with the foot on the throat. This gave the Caps the needed offensive boost to change things around.
As everyone is saying, get more people in Holtbe’s grill. Christ I don’t care if we take a penalty a game for getting to much in his grill. Do it!!!
My feeling is sit Seguin and throw Caron in there for a game. Get Seguin watching from the 9th level and think about where his heads at in this. If not him, Marchand.
And FFS, hit the god damn net when you shoot it!! How many opportunities and momentum did we lose because of shots that aren’t anywhere near hitting the net and fly the zone. They want to be shot blockers, make it hurt. Have Chara blast slap shots in their stomachs for a period and they’ll think twice.
Sorry for all the negativity. I’m soo ticked they didn’t take advantage of the series in this game with how the game unfolded.
Stu, no one’s sitting as you suggest. It’s not panic time, FFS!
First and foremost, Bongo-boy Semin’s shot that beat TT on the PP was pretty impressive. That said, the ref who made that call is pretty embarrassed right now, as it was 7 different shades of awful. But, that’s not why they lost the game last night.
45 shots is great, but where did most of them come from? This team needs to start playing below the circles and quit flying by the blue paint in the oh-fensive zone. F’ing hell, if I see Seguin shoot from above the dots one more time I might break something.
First and seconds NEED to get it going soon and the PP should go back to the umbrella formation that they had a lot of success w/ early in the season, IMO. Shrink the box, leading to quicker passes, which need to be translated to quick shots with a lot of traffic.
For all intent and purpose, this team has their own end and the neutral zone dialed. They just need to get back to their game at the other end. Keep it low (in the zone & regarding shots), cycle, bang, utilize the points, and grow roots in front of the net.
It wont be an easy choice for claude if he makes it, but the addition of thorton to lineup changed playoffs for bruins, and we saw how seguin reacted to being inserted into the lineup in third round. Not saying its gotta be a longterm thing, but I think a top two line player needs to take a seat. Bergeron stays because hes bergeron, krejci because hes a center.
Should have been a gimme game with backstrom out. that brutal error in first leading to goal cost them bigtime. True they cant win if they dont score, but that should have been a game where one would have been enough. Minus a decent flurry in the second caps had nothing. They will be better next game, so bruins better get there offense going. Lucic looked lost — seguin cant match physical level, marchand is still out of sync, and krejci just has no chemistry with anybody and is having trouble making space for himself, which is a skill of his. They miss Nathan Horton bigtime — no chemistry on top line. Peverley is doing an admirable one-man show trick, but the lines themselves arent gelling. Caron needs to come in and use the body and physical play he showed leading up to playoffs. Question is, who to take out? Bottom two lines should be untouchable in my opinion — doing their job and then some. So — out of your wingers: lucic, marchand and seguin, who gets the wake-up call scratch?
Matt
If Bergeron’s penalty was questionable, so was Boychuk’s. Also, if you’re going to take a penalty far better in your end than the opponents. If your going to lay any fault here, then put it in the first period when both Chara and Ferrence got caught up ice, and Rolston had to play defence.
The goalie played well, but we have to try and get in front of Holtby more, and stay on the crease. We had three of four pucks roll through the crease. As well, sometimes when they break in, with a line of three, the winger on the far side should drop back and shoot from the top of the circle. Use the middle forward as a screen.
I’m sure we will be fine next game.
B’s, like game 2, did not get enough traffic in front of Holtby. Holtby is playing well but most NHL goaltenders will stop a shot they can easily track.
Bruins need large, tough presence in front of the net guy’s that are tough and hard to move, that can block the goalie’s view of the play.