In Washington, DC, the Capitals had complete control of their game with the visiting Boston Bruins on Monday night.
Into the early minutes of the middle frame, the Caps held a 3-0 lead, and the house fell in on them like a flipped dump on basic cable television.
The Bruins responded with five unanswered goals, including four in the third period for a 5-3 win.
“When you’re down a couple goals, you’ve just got to press and live with the result, and if they come back the other way and make good plays against us, then we’ll move on,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said.
David Pastrnak got the rally going when he scored twice to cut the Caps lead to 3-2.
“On the scoring, obviously it felt great,” Pastrnak said. “Had a little trouble, I was missing the net a lot, so obviously it was a good one that finally hit the net. Definitely good to get the first one off.”
Jaroslav Halak made 23 saves in the win.
Zdeno Chara, John Carlson and Daniel Sprong scored for the Caps for the 3-0 lead.
“The third period and the goals they scored were, I don’t like the fact that we weren’t attacking as much. It was like we were good with the lead,” Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette said. “The first period I thought we were good. We were driving the period the way that we wanted to. We didn’t do that in the third period, so you’re sitting back.”
After Pastrnak got Boston within one, Craig Smith tied it up at 3-3.
“It was kind of a broken play up top,” Smith said. “He just kept rolling and hanging on to the puck. He made a great pass to that backdoor there on his backhand. I just had to get my stick on the ice and put it in.”
Brandon Carlo picked off the game-winner with 2:37 left on the clock in the third.
Brad Marchand potted an empty-net goal for the icing.
“The first period we came out strong,” Sprong said. “Last game against Boston, they kind of dominated us in the first. This game we came out hard in the first. We just didn’t finish the full 60 minutes.”
Vitek Vaneck made 28 saves in the loss.
“Just little things all over the ice. We didn’t play very well tonight,” Carlson said. “Last game I thought we had a lot better effort towards the end of the game than we did tonight.”
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