Caps hold onto second card in East like grim death, shut out Boston, 2-0 Lindgren makes 16 saves for the shutout

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In Washington, DC, the Capitals shut out the visiting Boston Bruins on Monday night, 2-0.

The win keeps the Caps in the second wild card in the Eastern Conference, but they have the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings just one point back.

“We understand what’s on the line, and I think you can see the effort,” Washington captain Alex Ovechkin said. “Huge goal by ‘Carly.’ Great job by ‘Chuckie,’ obviously. So, I think we played a solid 60 minutes, so right now we have to concentrate tomorrow on one game. The next game is going to be a big one.”

Charlie Lindgren made 16 saves in the win.

“Tonight was a great one, just from start to finish,” Lindgren said. “I thought the boys in red were all over them tonight. Probably one of our best games of the year, honestly. Love to see it. Enjoy it tonight, and then obviously you’ve got to be 100% ready to go tomorrow.”

The Capitals moved to 39-31-11.

John Carlson staked the Caps to a 1-0 lead at 12:00 of the opening stanza.

“I thought we played really well in all three zones,” Carlson said. “I thought we should’ve had a lot more. We were swarming the net against a tough defending team. I thought we got a lot of chances and didn’t get discouraged by not maybe having a few more than we did earlier on in the game and found a way.”

The Bruins dropped to 47-19-15.

“They looked like a team that was fighting for a playoff spot,” Bruins forward Charlie Coyle said. “We looked like a team that was already in the playoffs. That wasn’t good. We didn’t have our sense of urgency that we usually have and winning loose pucks, winning our battles, we didn’t do nearly enough of that.”

Nic Dowd hit an empty net with 13 seconds left on the game clock for the 2-0 final.

Jeremy Swayman made 23 saves in the loss.

“I’m not going to put too much into it, to be honest,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said of the loss. “We didn’t play well. Yeah, we start Saturday, we’ve had a real good string of games against real good teams, so I think our team is a confident team that didn’t give our best effort tonight.”