WASHINGTON – The Washington Capitals’ locker room doors stayed shut for 15 minutes after Wednesday night’s game ended, the team in the midst of a players-only meeting. The Capitals had just beaten the Boston Bruins in overtime, 4-3, but the fashion in which they did, surrendering an early three-goal lead, prompted an extended chat.
“Talked about some stuff,” T.J. Oshie said. “Positive.”
“It was just making sure we’re on the same page going forward,” goaltender Braden Holtby said. “It happens every year; you try and build your team that way. Your leaders try and lead the right way. That’s what it was.”
After the Capitals got off to a strong start with two goals from Justin Williams and one from Daniel Winnik, the team wasn’t able to maintain control. Washington’s half of the shot counter on the scoreboard appeared frozen, as more than 26 minutes ticked by without a shot on goal. In that span, the Bruins fired a steady stream of pucks at Holtby and erased a 3-0 lead to force overtime.
Nicklas Backstrom then scored from the right faceoff circle 96 seconds into the overtime. But escaping with the two points wasn’t satisfactory for the Capitals.
“Every time when you let teams back from a 3-0 lead, it’s not good enough,” Backstrom said. “We want to be a better team. We want to play tight. We want to be able to shut teams down. I thought they really outplayed us in the second and third period. Really, we were lucky to get two points, to be honest. I think that’s on us, and that’s maybe why we had a little talk.”
The Bruins were able to cap their comeback when Tom Wilson hit Anton Blidh along the benches, and the Bruins took exception to the hit, a scrum breaking out as a result. When the dust settled, Wilson had been called for interference, and Washington’s Jay Beagle and Dominic Moore were sent to the penalty box with matching roughing minors.
The extra minor on the Capitals put the Bruins on the power play, and Washington was without two of its top penalty-killers in Wilson and Beagle. Boston capitalized with a one-timer from Colin Miller as the man-advantage was about to expire, tying the game 8:19 into the third period.
“We sat back,” Williams said. “A 3-0 lead isn’t like it was 10 years ago. You still have to play the same way that got you the lead.”
Said Backstrom: “For me, I wasn’t really concerned about [the lack of] shots. That was just all-over effort. We were struggling getting the puck out of our own zone. I mean, teams in this league are too good to be sloppy like we were in the second and third.”
A first period that started strong turned sour for the Capitals when on a penalty kill in the first period. Defenseman Matt Niskanen was boarded by Boston’s Patrice Bergeron, who was assessed a minor penalty for the hit. Niskanen immediately went back to the locker room because of an upper-body injury and he did not return, held out for precautionary reasons, the team announced. He is to be re-evaluated Thursday, when the Capitals don’t practice and travel to Buffalo for Friday night’s game.
The Bruins took advantage of Washington having to play with just five defensemen for most of the game, and the Capitals stopped getting shots on goal. With Washington up by three goals in the second period, the Bruins started to narrow the deficit. They outshot the Capitals, 10-2, in the second frame, and they were rewarded with two goals in the last four minutes before second intermission.
Blidh fired a puck that Holtby had attempted to swat out of danger with his stick, and after the puck brushed off Holtby’s shoulder, Moore swatted it into the net for Boston’s first goal of the game. Then with a minute left in the period, Evgeny Kuznetsov turned the puck over at the offensive blue line and then lost a battle for it to Boston’s David Pastrnak. Pastrnak scored his 16th goal of the season with a breakaway on Holtby.
It was a somber winning locker room after the game, but Coach Barry Trotz was happy with his team’s response.
“I’m glad that they said, ‘You know what, we’ve got to grab this; we’ve got to do it,’ ” Trotz said. “Because no one else goes on the ice but them.”