Caps Can't Solve Bruins Second Time Around

Capitals 1, Bruins 4
Game Summary

In the second game in a home and home with the Boston Bruins, the Washington Capitals showed flashes of what it was like a year ago. Facing a good goalie and a tough defense, the Caps' power play sputtered, the PK fell apart and mental mistakes you can count on two hands. After the Bruins play the perfect road game, the turn around and play the perfect home opener in front of their fans. The Caps however find more questions about their struggling offense.

Jason Chimera goal was only a result of a errant pass by Bruins' goaltender Tim Thomas that lead to a nearly empty netter. The Caps would only get that single point on the night.

The Capitals power play continues to struggle. At pivotal points in the game, they had the chance to crawl back into game. But the Caps were caught standing around and any chances they had were swallowed up by Thomas. There is little or no movement on the Caps' power play. The passes are predictable and there seems to be no need to change the system.

While the PP struggled, the penalty kill was going along just swimmingly. Until tonight. The Caps could only kill off the first penalty, then took a nose dive allowing three straight power play goals by the Boston squad. The Bruins moved the puck masterfully with the extra man. The set up got the Caps defenders running around and tired them out. Goals came easy after that.

Boudreau tinkered his lines again moving up Marcus Johansson to the second line, hoping the promotion to better talent might get the rookie going and make that second line come together. Tomas Fleischmann continues to fall short of expectations. Flash was demoted to the third line and was nearly invisible tonight.

This effort was sort of lacking. The Caps have to find other ways to win when the defense squeezes all the chances out of a game. Four power plays were squandered for the night. If the Capitals scored as many power play goals as PP goals against, this game would have been tied.

The Caps also had the time to come back and improve over the loss to the Bruins from Tuesday night. They failed to do that.

The Caps get back into Southeast Division play by facing the Atlanta Thrashers at home Saturday night. This after the Thrash handed the Capitals a season opening loss. And then they take on the Hurricanes in Carolina on Wednesday night. Both should be good tilts.