The Bruins had a successful shootout, defeating the Washington Capitals at the Capital One Arena on Saturday, March 30th. It was an exciting win for Boston after the 3-1 loss they took on Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Jeremy Swayman made 18 saves and stopped three shootout attempts for Boston helping them to get a 3-2 victory. Kevin Shattenkirk struck the deciding goal in the fifth round of the shootout before Swayman had stopped the third attempt by Connor McMichael. The Bruins will visit the Nashville Predators to hopefully carry this momentum for another great victory on Tuesday, April 2nd.
Bruins lineup against the Capitals:
Marchand – Zacha – Pastrnak
Heinen – Coyle – Frederic
DeBrusk – Geekie – Brazeau
Beecher – Boqvist – Lauko
Lindholm – McAvoy
Grzelcyk – Carlo
Shattenkirk – Peeke
Swayman
Ullmark
Capitals lineup against the Bruins:
Ovechkin – McMichael – Oshie
Protas – Strome – Miroshnichenko
Pacioretty – Lapierre – Milano
Malenstyn – Dowd – Sgarbossa
Fehervary – Carlson
Alexeyev – Jensen
van Riemsdyk – Iorio
Lindgren
Kuemper
Late into the first frame at 1:13, Hampus Lindholm scored the first goal to put Boston in the lead to head into the second. He scored from the left point with a wrist shot through traffic, recording his second goal of the season.
Michael Sgarbossa tied it 1-1 to put Washington on the board with his fourth goal of the season and the eighth of his NHL career. Sgarbossa struck from the right face-off circle with a wrister early into the second period at 18:40. With a response to put Boston back in front 2-1, Johnny Beecher jammed a backhand between Charlie Lindgren’s pads on a breakaway after intercepting a pass in the defensive zone by Dylan Strome. This had been Beecher’s seventh goal of the season and the seventh of his NHL career. John Carlson recorded his eighth of the season in his 1,000th career game to tie it back up 2-2 on the power play at the left post off a cross-crease pass from Max Pacioretty.
The third period had been scoreless, the Bruins and Capitals remaining in a tie game. They had also remained scoreless in overtime, heading into a shootout to determine the game-winner.
For Boston – Jake DeBrusk scored in the first round, David Pastrnak scored in the third round, and Kevin Shattenkirk called it a wrap in the fifth round of the shootout.
For Washington – Dylan Strome scored in the second round, Sonny Milano scored in the third round, and Connor McMichael had been stopped by Jeremy Swayman in the fifth round.
Johnny Beecher on scoring and the 3-2 shootout victory: “It’s kind of just something that I feel I need to rely on even more. My feet and my skating north-south… I think there are a couple of opportunities in each game to kind of explode up the ice and tramp the D-men on their heels. I’ve been trying to do that more and more, really trying to find it, and build that in my game more,” – “I think we were able to not get frustrated, and just keep building as the game went on. The guys did an unbelievable job in overtime killing off that penalty and came out with a win. So, everyone’s happy.”
Jeremy Swayman on the Bruins’ win: “The team did a great job hounding pucks, keeping pucks below their red line. At the end of the day, our penalty kill came up with a win, so that’s really exciting. Big momentum for us moving forward,” – “A lot of great experience and just understanding that we have a job to do no matter if it’s a penalty kill situation, 3-on-3, 5-on-5 – every guy on the ice, on the bench, has a job to do. I think today was a great example of that and I’m really happy with our result.”
Notes:
– Jeremy Swayman, 24-8-8, had tied his career season-high for victories set in the 2022-23 season.
– The Bruins had 29 blocked shots, five being from Brandon Carlo.
– John Carlson became the second player in Washington Capitals history to score a goal in his 1,000th NHL career game. He joins Calle Johansson, who had done the same on March 19th, 2001.
– Rasmus Sandin had been a late scratch due to a lower-body injury.
