Washington Capitals vs Bruins Proving To Be A Series of Mistakes

I am going to go out on a limb and say fans of the Washington Capitals are not happy about how this series vs the Boston Bruins has gone so far. Call me crazy, but it’s just something I’m sensing right now. If that is truly the case, you have excellent reasons to be frustrated. The Capitals see themselves in a 3-1 hole, that meaning they are on the brink of being knocked out of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

It’s not over yet. There is still hockey to be played. We all know the saying of, “The fourth game is the hardest to win”, that’s not a myth. The Capitals are still a good team and you’d expect them to put together a great effort for the remainder of this series. That being said, you would expect a team down 2-1 would at the least put forward a decent effort to try to avoid the 3-1 hole. I for one expect the Capitals to give the Bruins their moneys worth if they are in fact going to lose.

The Capitals don’t really have a whole lot of other things or people to blame than themselves for this predicament. This is a series that is proving to be a series of mistakes. Every team is going to make mistakes throughout a game for sure. It’s up to you to limit the amount of mistakes, do not make the big mistake at the worst time, and capitalize on your opponent’s mistakes. When talking about this series so far the Bruins are doing much better at the last two things I just said.

When talking about game one there probably wasn’t thee big mistake that led to the game winner. It was a fairly common play and a nice play by the Capitals. If you’re the Bruins, it sucks to lose that one, if you’re the Caps, hoorah!

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The past three games, however, mistakes have happened. Those mistakes are mostly being made by the Capitals as well. At least the critical ones are being made by the Caps.

In game two it was a poor clearance in overtime. Brendan Dillon made a poor pass or clear that did not get out of the Capitals zone, the Bruins jumped on it and won it in overtime via Brad Marchand.

In game three you could maybe point out a couple of mistakes. Nic Dowd got called for high sticking in the third period which led to Brad Marchand (that guy again) scoring the tying goal with about eight and a half minutes to go in the third period. Then you had maybe the biggest mistake of the series. Ilya Samsonov had a miscommunication with Justin Schultz behind the net and that led to Craig Smith taking the puck and stuffing it into the goal before Samsonov could get back.

Finally, in game four you could point to penalties. For some reason Dmitry Orlov tried to hit Kevan Miller on a rush, he ends up hitting him high, knocking Miller out for the rest of the game. On the ensuing power play, Marchand (seriously, this guy) gets the first goal of the game. It was a hit from Orlov that just did not need to happen and with the Capitals playing poorly in that game anyways that 1-0 hole felt like a multi goal lead.

It was a multi goal lead eventually thanks to another penalty, this time by Anthony Mantha getting sent to the box for interference. That penalty came with fifteen seconds left in the second period, the punishing goal came just twenty-nine seconds into the third. That would hold up as your game winner. Penalties and power plays proving to be the deciding factor in game four.

The Bruins have jumped on the Capitals mistakes, the Bruins have not made as many mistakes, and the Caps have not jumped on them. Case in point the Capitals going 1/7 on the power play in game four, the one goal being a lucky bounce, Alex Ovechkin breaking his stick on the shot and the puck then going off the skate of the Boston penalty killer.

When you’re in the playoffs you have to limit your mistakes. Good teams will punish you when you make mistakes. There are no bad teams in the playoffs for the Capitals to beat up on like they did in the regular season. These are all great teams. If you’re going to make big mistakes in the playoffs expect to have a rough time.

Washington is down 3-1 in the opening round of the playoffs. A big reason they’re in this big of a hole this early is mistakes.