Capitals blow another 2-0 lead to get stomped by Bruins

The Washington Capitals are on a bit of a slide and despite going up 2-0 early against the Boston Bruins, the team couldn’t simply stay out of the penalty box. Then the Bruins piled it on.

Conor Sheary scored the games first two goals. His first one came at 3:02 and was assisted by Nic Dowd and Garnet Hathaway. He would score again at 12:32 for his 10th goal of the season. It looked like he was on a hat trick watch and the Caps would finally win a game in 2022. Then the Bruins scored six straight goals.

Penalties? Yup penalties. The Caps didn’t score on their power play chance in the first period, no surprises there. Then Evgeny Kuznetsov was called for holding while Nic Dowd had a double minor with high sticking. It would come back to bite them. The Bruins would score twice on the power play.

The first goal came from David Pastrnak at 18:34 then Brad Marchand knotted it up at 19:14. 2-2 was the score after one with the Caps leading in shots 11-10.

Despite shots being even at 11 apiece in the second quarter, the Bruins would pile it on. Matt Grzelcyk gave the Bruins the lead at 2:51. Craig Smith scored at 7:53. Pastrnak added his second goal of the game at 8:54. Erik Haula made it 6-2 at 13:09.

The Caps would get one back and cut the deficit in half thanks to T.J. Oshie with his fifth goal of the season at 14:06. It was assisted by Alex Ovechkin and Kuznetsov. In the third period Marchand put the exclamation point on the game at 10:59. The Bruins led in shots 10-8 in the third and 31-30 overall.

Zach Fucale got the start in goal for the Capitals but had his first bad outing after setting an NHL record the other day and pitching a shutout in his NHL debut a few months ago. He got sent back to Hershey this morning. Fucale allowed four goals on 16 shots before Vitek Vanecek came in to relieve him. Vanecek didn’t do much better as he allowed three goals on 15 shots.

Capitals Coach Peter Laviolette told the media after the game:

"“The start was good. I thought we came out and did the right things. … The odd-man rushes and the turnovers in the second period didn’t help us play a tight game. Can’t do that against that team.”"

The Caps will look to end their slide on Saturday afternoon at the New York Islanders.