In Boston, Charlie McAvoy scored a power play goal with 45 seconds left in regulation to give the Bruins a 4-3 win over the visiting Washington Capitals on Thursday night.
“I thought it was a resilient effort by us. We showed good character, going down two guys up front. … It’s always great to get two points,” McAvoy said. “It was a great play by [Jake DeBrusk] to buy time, and I had a feeling he was going to see me. I was able to just get that shot through, and to see it go in, I know I was feeling excited.”
Linus Ullmark made 14 saves in the Boston win.
Evgeny Kuznetsov, Lars Eller, and Nicklas Backstrom were the Caps strikers.
“It was a good forecheck [on my goal]. … I was just trying to pick a spot, and luckily it went in,” Backstrom said. “It was a good battle, I think, two desperate teams that want points. I think we battled until the end. Unfortunately, they scored with 45 seconds left. It would have been nice to at least get a point out of it.”
Washington fell to 22-10-9.
David Pastrnak hit for a pair of goals for the Bruins.
“I thought we were ready to play, much more prepared than Tuesday night,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “I’m not surprised by the group being ready to go. … I think we’ve played Washington well the last few years. … I was pleased, start to finish. I thought we dug in and played hard. It was a physical game, and I thought we were the better team. … Clearly thought we played a very good hockey game today.”
Boston improved to 23-12-2.
Jake DeBrusk added a single marker for the Bruins.
Vitek Vanecek made 29 saves in the Capitals loss.
“The end result is not good,” Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette said. “We lost the game, and we were there at the end, but didn’t get it done. … I thought the guys played hard. … It was a tight game. It was physical. It was battle-heavy. At the end of the day, it’s tough to lose in the last two minutes of the game.”
Boston’s Brad Marchand and Anton Blidh left the ice for apparent injuries. The Capitals’ Nick Jensen also departed for upper body injury.
“We’ll see going forward,” Cassidy said. “Obviously, we don’t know the severity of [Marchand’s] injury or [Anton] Blidh’s, for that matter. … You hate to see a guy like [Marchand] go down on such a kind of cheap hit. But that’s hockey some nights and hopefully he bounces back.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.