Bruins maintain east lead with OT win over Caps

The Boston Bruins got the second half of the NHL season off to a successful start on Tuesday night as they defeated the Washington Capitals 3-2 in overtime.  It was the Bruins’ first win in their last four tries against Washington, who are their closest rival in the Eastern Conference.

Boston has been on a nice run lately, and the victory on Tuesday at the TD BankNorth Garden improved the Bruins’ record on the year to 35-8-5 and 6-1-1 in their last eight games.   They even made some history at the NHL All-Star game over the weekend, as their monstrous 6’9” defenseman Zdeno Chara won the “hardest shot” competition with a sizzling 105.4 MPH effort that broke Al Iafrate’s 16 year old record of 105.2 MPH.  The Bruins are running away with the Northeast Division lead, holding a 15 point edge over Montreal and now have a sizable 11 point margin over Washington for the best record in the Eastern Conference. 

Things could have been much worse for the Caps, as they got a huge scare late in the second period when reigning NHL MVP Alex Ovechkin crashed awkwardly into the boards.  Ovechkin left the ice for the remainder of the period, but returned for the third period.  The Caps PR department reported that Ovechkin had suffered a “stinger” but felt much better after 15 minutes or so.  Washington coach Bruce Boudreau, stating the obvious commented that Ovechkin is “a pretty tough kid”.

Washington took an early lead on Mike Green’s goal from Ovechkin and Alexander Semin just over two minutes into the game, but the Bruins answered just seven minutes later as Shawn Thorton’s unassisted tally evened the score at 1-1.  Michael Nylander would “put the biscuit in the basket” just 21 seconds before the end of the frame to send the Caps into the locker room with a 2-1 advantage.

A power play goal by Marc Savard, assisted by Patrice Bergeron late in the second would even the score at two goals apiece.  After a scoreless third period, the overtime session had just begun when the Caps Nicklas Backstrom was sent off for hooking.  On the ensuing power play, David Krejci scored assisted by Zdeno Chara and Dennis Wideman to give the Bruins a 3-2 victory.

The victory was a good start to a tough week for the Bruins, who’ll host New Jersey on Thursday night and the New York Rangers on Saturday before heading up to Montreal for a contest with the Canadians on Sunday.  Washington, conversely, will be off until the weekend when they’ll host Detroit on Saturday and Ottawa on Sunday before a Tuesday night road game against the New Jersey Devils.