So, the round-robin tournament could’ve gone better for the Bruins.
Boston dropped its third and final game to finish winless, falling 2-1 to the Washington Capitals on Sunday afternoon at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. With their fourth-place finish in the round-robin tournament, the Bruins now will play the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
It wasn’t a wholly uninspired effort for the Bruins, but there were far too many moments where they lacked jump and missed key missed scoring opportunities.
Jake DeBrusk scored the Bruins’ lone goal. T.J. Oshie and Tom Wilson had the Caps’ tallies. Tuukka Rask made 23 saves for Boston, while Braden Holtby turned away 29 shots for Washington.
The Bruins finish round-robin play 0-3-0, while the Capitals were 1-1-1.
Here’s how it all went down:
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TOUGH FINISH
Boston gave a decent effort in the first period, but sustained a gut-punch with 16 seconds left to go into the break down 1-0.
In the waning moments of the period, Dmitry Orlov made a deep, diagonal pass that found Nicklas Backstrom. The pivot quickly redirected the puck, which Rask turned away. Zdeno Chara was marking Oshie on the doorstep, but as the blueliner got possession and went to skate behind the net, Oshie sprung free, won the puck off Chara’s stick and put it home at 19:44.
🍩shbabe!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/wjOkV27rKR
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) August 9, 2020
The goal marred what was a mostly solid period for the Bruins, who outshot Washington 6-2 in the opening 20 minutes.
HOLDING STEADY
The middle period ended scoreless, for better or for worse.
Boston was strong enough in the defensive end, successfully killing a pair of penalties. However, the offense just couldn’t get going, in part because Holtby was playing, well, like he usually does against the Bruins, stopping all 10 of Boston’s attempts.
Similarly, Rask handled the Caps well, turning away the 13 shots he faced in the frame.
The Bruins did have one exceptional chance off a rush in which Holtby ended up way out of his net, but Nick Ritchie — twice — was unable to finish.
IMO Nick Ritchie probably should've put one of these away pic.twitter.com/kp5uGXU7Bc
— Logan Mullen (@ByLoganMullen) August 9, 2020
NOT ENOUGH
The Bruins scored in the third period, but so too did the Caps, held on in the final 10 minutes to earn the victory.
The period got off to a pretty dreadful start for the Bruins, with Ilya Kovalchuk clearing Washington’s zone early on by backhanding the puck to the other end of the ice. Wilson gave chase to it and beat Charlie McAvoy there, then quickly got a shot off that beat Rask over his left shoulder at 2:49 to put the Caps up 2-0.
Y'all see this Whip 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘥? pic.twitter.com/Fs8JDggexw
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) August 9, 2020
Just beyond the midway point of the third, the Bruins finally showed some life.
With the Bruins on the rush, Kase tried to feather a pass to DeBrusk, but the puck ended up loose after getting knocked down in traffic. Kase tried to regain possession for the Bruins, while Jonas Siegenthaler and Nic Dowd attempted to do the same for Washington. Meanwhile, DeBrusk was streaking down the wing a few strides ahead of the deepest Caps defender, and Kase managed to poke the loose puck to his linemate, who quickly snuck a shot through Holtby to put Boston within one at 10:30.
JD PUTS THE B'S ON THE BOARD 👊 pic.twitter.com/IVSamyWIit
— NESN (@NESN) August 9, 2020
Rask emptied the net with a minute left, but the Bruins were unable to find an equalizer with the extra skater on.
UP NEXT
The Bruins now will take on the Hurricanes in the first round. The schedule for that series, and the rest of the playoffs, likely will be released Sunday night.
