Brad Marchand overtime goal gives Bruins victory in Game 2, evens series with Capitals
Marchand #Marchand
Brad Marchand was off his game. He had zeroes next to his name on the scoresheet, except for the penalty column. He had two of those.
One shot was all he needed.
Marchand ripped a one-time feed from Matt Grzelcyk past Craig Anderson 39 seconds into overtime, lifting the Bruins to a 4-3 win Monday night and evening this first-round series with the Capitals. Boston returns home to TD Garden on Wednesday having overcome a hard, hateful pair of games in D.C.
Marchand celebrated by leaping into the arms of Taylor Hall, who scored the tying goal late in the third.
“I thought we were the better team,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Full value for the win .. Everyone came to play. LIttle bit of a tough start. Boy, were they on us.”
Hall tied the game at 3-3 when he jammed the puck past Anderson in a wild scramble in the crease with 2:49 left in regulation. Garnet Hathaway had give the Capitals a 3-2 lead with his second goal of the game a little more than 10 minutes earlier.
Jake DeBrusk and Patrice Bergeron scored first-period goals, each giving the Bruins a lead. But Washington responded each time, first on a T.J. Oshie tip on a power play and then on Hathaway’s first.
The Bruins finished with a 48-39 advantage in shots.
The last 11 postseason games between the Bruins and Capitals have been decided by one goal, including both games in overtime in this series.
The Bruins and Capitals were 3-3 after 60 bruising, high-flying minutes, with Hall extending the Black and Gold hopes. Hall’s tying goal with 2:49 left in the third was fitting for this game, in that it was all frenetic, knock-down chaos. It came on a beautiful mess in front, Hall scoring on the fourth whack that connected.
Craig Smith got there first, missing a centering feed from Grzelcyk, but he and David Krejci found themselves off their skates before they could jam it home. Conor Sheary bowled over Charlie McAvoy as the sticks kept rattling. Before Tom Wilson could knock down Hall with a cross-check, Hall smacked it past Anderson, tying the score at 3 with 2:49 remaining.
The Capitals did not protest the call, lest they risk a delay-of-game penalty for an unsuccessful challenge.
Anderson’s revival continued, the soon-to-be 40-year-old reserve making 43 stops through regulation. At the other end, Tuukka Rask turned aside 36. He didn’t have much of a chance on Washington’s go-ahead goal.
Kevan Miller went outside the zone to cut off Carl Hagelin, even though Dmitry Orlov was steaming toward them. Orlov picked up the puck and fed a streaking Hathaway, and the Mainer (Kennebunkport) beat Rask over the glove at 7:04 of the third.
It was wild from the start, the Capitals trying to again stake claim as kings of the jungle. Early on, Wilson popped a standing Curtis Lazar off his skates and into the bench with the thunder of a powered-up video game character. Wilson later dove theatrically after Connor Clifton grabbed him on the rush. Officials tried to keep pace, sending three pairs of opponents to the box on matching minors in the first two periods.
Observations from the game:
· The Bruins scored twice on their first five shots, but Anderson stopped the next 28 he saw. The visitors entered the third trying to solve the Capitals third-stringer-turned-starter, who turns 40 on Friday.
· The teams each put 18 shots on goal and two in the net in the first period, but they turned up the checking — and the heat — in the second. The Bruins outshot the Caps 15-9 in a second period that had three sets of matching minors (and a Hall drawn penalty, his third in two playoff games). The Bruins were 0 for 2 on the power play through 40:00, the Caps 1 for 2.
· Marchand put a few strong shifts together, but he was engaged a bit too much in the extracurriculars. He spent four minutes in the box for post-whistle action, on one occasion negating a Bruins power play in the first by throwing an extra shot at Nic Dowd. He’s also lucky he didn’t get more than a matching minor with Anthony Mantha after chopping him between the legs. Marchand was called for a high-stick
· As they did in Game 1, the Capitals tried to hit the Bruins out of the building in the opening minutes. After surviving that, and some early jitters thanks to Rask (25 saves through two periods), the Bruins took a 1-0 lead.
· Charlie Coyle fooled Anderson out of his skates on the opening goal. His fake-and-wraparound the net caused Anderson to slid far outside the right post, and when the goalie bumped defenseman Brenden Dillon, he was unable to recover in time before DeBrusk, choking up on his stick, cashed Coyle’s feed in the paint at 5:05 of the first. DeBrusk, he of five goals in 41 regular-season games and a few healthy scratches, has a pair of goals in Games 1 and 2.
· Washington evened it 1:26 later, on a power play after David Pastrnak committed a hold while covering for a pinching Grzelcyk. Alex Ovechkin couldn’t get off a one-timer from his office, but Oshie tipped his hard shot-pass short-side high, 12 seconds into the PP. Yet another deflection for the Caps, who scored four of their first five goals on pinballed pucks.
· The Bruins were shaky early, and yet led 2-1 at 10:39 of the first. Pastrnak jumped to keep a puck in at the line and went back diagonal to Bergeron, the high forward, who ripped a shot under the bar. The captain did not hit the net — five misses, two attempts blocked — in Game 1. That trend: a one-off. Through 40:00, he landed five of six attempts.
· The Capitals pocketed another lucky bounce with 3:18 left in the first. Lars Eller beat Bergeron at the dot, and a shin pad-high point shot from Orlov went off Hathaway’s leg, found its way through a forest, and trickled through Rask’s five-hole.
· Miller played one shift before crashing into the boards while finishing a check on Daniel Sprong. He limped to the dressing room but returned at the end of the first. He looked fine in the second.
· The Capitals, meanwhile, lost Eller in the second period to an unknown ailment. That left them with two true centers — Backstrom and Dowd — in the lineup. Oshie was moonlighting as a middleman.