As Brad Marchand said Monday night, “You probably could’ve guessed it was going to play out this way.”
Indeed, the Bruins and Capitals meeting in the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs has felt inevitable for a while, going all the way back to Zdeno Chara leaving Boston to sign with Washington in the offseason. The only question was whether it would be in the first or second round.
It’ll be the first. The East Division bracket is now set, with the third-seeded Bruins facing the second-seeded Capitals and the top-seeded Penguins taking on the fourth-seeded Islanders.
Game 1 will be Saturday night in Washington at 7:15 p.m. on NBC. Here are five early thoughts on the series:
1. This is going to be physical
As Olivia Newton-John and later Dua Lipa sang, let’s get physical. The Capitals are one of the biggest, hardest-hitting and yes, at times dirtiest teams in the NHL.
The Bruins don’t need to be reminded of that. They’ve faced them seven times this season -- with an eighth, meaningless game in which both teams could rest some top players coming Tuesday night -- and have seen it first-hand.
Back on March 5, Washington’s Tom Wilson drilled Boston defenseman Brandon Carlo in the head, forcing Carlo to spend a night in the hospital and miss nearly a month with a concussion. Wilson received a seven-game suspension for the hit.
In their most recent meeting on April 18, Capitals forward Garnet Hathaway ran Jarred Tinordi from behind, resulting in a five-minute major and game misconduct for Hathaway and a bloody face and some missed time for Tinordi.
Wilson, who has been suspended five times in his eight-year career, made headlines again recently when his attacks on Rangers forwards Pavel Buchnevich and Artemi Panarin led to a $5,000 fine that many believe should’ve been a suspension.
The Capitals finish every hit they can, and they’re not afraid to toe the line and sometimes cross it to do so. The Bruins know that and must be ready for it. Head on a swivel.
The Bruins aren’t quite as big or as physical, but they’re no pushovers either. They have more than held their own against the Capitals, both in the ring (five fights in seven games) and on the scoreboard (4-1-2 record against Washington on the season).
Sometimes it takes a game or two for some bad blood to build in a playoff series. That will not be the case here. This is the kind of playoff series where you hope that if you do advance, you do so with only bumps and bruises and nothing more serious.
2. Zdeno Chara facing the Bruins in the playoffs is going to be very weird
Just as you probably started to get used to seeing Chara on the other side across seven regular-season games, now comes a new and even weirder experience: seeing him face the Bruins in a best-of-seven playoff series.
Chara played 150 playoff games with the Bruins, the second-most in franchise history behind only Ray Bourque (Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci could both pass him in this series). Naturally, his first playoff series with his new team is against his former one.
The Bruins were willing to bring Chara back, but not as an everyday player. Chara believed he was still capable of playing every day, and went out and proved it by playing 54 of 55 games this season for Washington, averaging 18:17 time on ice per game.
It’s not the top-pairing role he played for so many years in Boston, but nor is it the rotational role the Bruins had in mind for this season. He’s been a solid third-pairing defensive defenseman and the Capitals’ top penalty-killer.
Chara still gets some of the toughest defensive assignments for Washington, which means he’s probably going to see a lot of the Bruins’ top two lines in this series. That means head-to-head matchups with longtime teammates and co-leaders Bergeron, Krejci and Brad Marchand.
That’s weird enough. Then things get even weirder when the games start to get crispy and Chara has to get in the faces of those guys, which is what happened earlier this season when Chara started to go after Marchand and had to be restrained by Bergeron.
The Bruins losing this series and seeing Chara advance with his new team would sting. The Bruins winning this series and potentially ending Chara’s career would be bittersweet. (To be clear, we don’t know what Chara plans to do after this season.)
3. These are two great top-sixes… if the Capitals are healthy
Both teams made it a priority to upgrade their top six at the trade deadline and both succeeded, especially the Bruins.
The addition of Taylor Hall, combined with an improved Craig Smith and a rejuvenated David Krejci, has flipped the Bruins’ second line from a question mark to a major strength. With two goals Monday night, Hall now has eight goals and six assists in 16 games with Boston. Krejci had three assists Monday and now has six goals and 15 assists in that same 16-game stretch.
The line as a whole has been on the ice for 13 goals for at five-on-five and just one goal against, giving them the sixth-best goal differential of any line in the NHL… not since the trade deadline, but for the entire season. One of the lines ahead of them is the Bruins’ top line of Marchand, Bergeron and David Pastrnak, which is third at plus-16.
The Capitals’ top two lines aren’t quite as dominant in terms of goal differential, but there is plenty of firepower there, especially with the addition of their own big trade deadline acquisition, Anthony Mantha, who has four goals and four assists in 13 games since the move.
The Capitals, however, have been pretty banged-up down the stretch, with Wilson, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, TJ Oshie, Evgeny Kuznetsov and top defenseman John Carlson all missing varying amounts of time due to injury (most of them) or COVID protocols (Kuznetsov). All of them except Oshie and Kuznetsov practiced on Monday, though. Coach Peter Laviolette hasn’t revealed much in terms of their statuses, just calling them all “day-to-day.”
When healthy, they had been lining up with Kuznetsov between Ovechkin and Wilson on one line and Backstrom between Mantha and Oshie on the other.
4. Defense, goaltending should be advantages for Bruins
You could certainly argue that even offense is now an edge for the Bruins. They have scored more goals per game since the trade deadline, and they’re healthier as of right now.
Defense and goaltending should really be an advantage, though. The Bruins are fourth in the NHL in team defense, giving up 2.40 goals per game this season. The Capitals are 17th at 2.91.
Since the trade deadline the gap is even bigger. The Bruins lead the NHL with 1.88 goals against per game over the last month; the Capitals have improved slightly to 2.77.
Tuukka Rask is 7-1-0 with a .923 save percentage since returning from injury on April 15, although he hasn’t really looked quite at his best the last two games. If he struggles or if his injury flares up, the Bruins could turn to rookie Jeremy Swayman, who is 7-2-0 with a .946 save percentage in nine starts.
Goaltending has been an enigma all season for the Capitals. Vitek Vanecek has been up and down, but has just an .899 save percentage in 14 games since March 25. Ilya Samsonov is currently on the COVID list for the second time this season. Even if he’s cleared before Saturday, he’s been no savior, posting an .896 save percentage in 10 games since that same March 25 date.
5. Bruins must stay out of the box
Here’s where the Capitals can really hurt the Bruins. They have the third-best power play in the NHL at 25.0%, and the Bruins are the fifth-most penalized team in the league.
The Bruins do have the best penalty kill in the NHL (91.0%), but they’ve struggled with the Capitals’ man advantage, giving up nine goals on 29 opportunities (31.0%) on the season.
We already covered the fact that this is going to be a physical series. The Capitals would love nothing more than to goad the Bruins into losing their cool, retaliating and starting a parade to the box.
The Bruins have been a much better five-on-five team since the trade deadline (league-best plus-22 five-on-five goal differential over the last month, compared to the Capitals’ plus-1). They would be wise to keep this series at even strength instead of letting it become a special teams battle -- their own power play has started to turn a corner recently, but their advantage over Washington remains at five-on-five.
Play physical, don’t back down, but be smart.