B’s slip up in finale
Fall flat vs. Caps, lose Carlo
The postseason does not begin until later this week and, for the Bruins, that’s a good thing. Not only were they not in playoff mode in yesterday’s 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals at the Garden, the B’s can use all the time they can get in hopes of getting healthy.
After losing Torey Krug in the previous game to a lower-body injury that makes him very questionable for the start of the playoffs on Thursday, the Bruins lost another defenseman in the regular-season finale when Brandon Carlo departed with an upper-body injury in the first period.
Interim coach Bruce Cassidy did not have a prognosis for Carlo, but he did have a diagnosis of his team’s play.
“I didn’t feel we were invested enough in most areas of the game to beat the first-place team in the National Hockey League. It’s probably that simple to me,” said Cassidy, whose team was outshot 32-22. “They’re a good hockey club. They don’t have a lot of weaknesses. You have to be on your ‘A’ game, and we did not have our ‘A’ game.”
The Bruins lost the chance to control whether they stay in the Atlantic Division for the first round or get bounced out to the second wild card spot. That will be determined by the Toronto Maple Leafs. If the Maple Leafs, who beat Pittsburgh last night, emerge from tonight’s game against Columbus with at least one point, the B’s will play the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Capitals in the first round of the playoffs.
Judging by yesterday — and for that matter, the past three years — that is not an ideal scenario. The Bruins last beat the Capitals on March 24, 2014.
“They’re the Presidents’ Trophy winners,” David Backes said. “They’ve had the best record for two years in a row. They’ve earned it. But we erase all those regular-season statistics and points and all that, and you’ve got to win four before the other team does. That needs to be our mentality, whether we’re playing Washington or Ottawa (the second-place team in the Atlantic). Whoever it is, we need to erase our minds and get a game plan in there that’s going to work against whoever we’re playing and then go execute it and play harder than the guy across from you. The way this team’s played down the stretch, we’ve worked our butts off to get in and I love our group. We’re going to have a few days here to prep and get it together, then go out and play our game.”
The Capitals took a 1-0 lead early in the first when Marcus Johansson beat backup goalie Anton Khudobin to finish a 3-on-2 set up by Frank Vatrano’s bad change, but that was not the most eventful thing that happened in the period. Carlo was playing the puck in the right corner of the defensive zone and was slightly off-balance when Washington star Alex Ovechkin hit him from behind. It looked like Ovechkin let up a bit, but he still rammed Carlo’s head into the glass. Carlo was slow to get up and needed some assistance to make his way to the locker room.
“I didn’t like it,” Cassidy said of the hit. “I don’t think it was intentional. To hit a guy from behind, it looked like he let up, but he still grabbed him from behind in a vulnerable spot and he went headfirst into the glass. And generally there’s a call on that, sometimes two (minutes), sometimes five. But to have no call at all on that was wrong. But I don’t think there was an intent to injure, as I saw it.”
The Capitals’ 1-0 advantage held until 15:13 of the second period, when defenseman Colin Miller tied it up for the B’s. Drew Stafford stole a puck in the offensive zone and took it to the net. Washington backup goalie Philipp Grubauer kicked out Stafford’s bid, but Miller scored on the rebound.
The tying goal only seemed to serve to make the Capitals mad.
The visitors scored two goals in the final 4:47 of the period and nearly had a third. Just 56 seconds after Miller’s goal, Nicklas Backstrom took the puck in deep and sent a pass out high to Kevin Shattenkirk, who beat Khudobin with a long-range shot.
Shattenkirk appeared to give Washington a twogoal lead with another blue-line shot 1:22 later, but the tally was called back for goalie interference by Justin Williams.
But the B’s couldn’t get out of the period with just a one-goal deficit. Patrice Bergeron won a defensive-zone draw, but his teammates were slow to the puck and the Capitals controlled it. Evgeny Kuznetsov sent a beautiful pass to Williams, who roofed a shot behind Khudobin with 50 seconds left in the period.
And that pretty much marked the end of the regular season for the B’s.