This was the game the Capitals were supposed to come out flying. With the Bruins leading the series 2-1, Washington had to be the more desperate team, right?
The Bruins were just going to have to try to find a way to keep up. Maybe weather an early storm and hope you can start to take control as the game settles in a little bit.
So much for all that. The Bruins dominated Friday night’s Game 4 from start to finish, winning 4-1 and taking a 3-1 series lead. They played like the hungrier, more desperate team. They won seemingly every race and battle. They displayed a killer instinct in making the Capitals pay for one mistake after another.
And they showed some championship mettle, displaying the kind of determination and resiliency that makes you start to believe a team has what it takes to really make a deep run.
The Bruins came out flying Friday, dominating a first period in which they outshot the Capitals 11-4, including 11-2 at five-on-five. They could have been discouraged by the fact that the game was still 0-0 at the break despite their dominance, but they weren’t. They continued to control play to start the second, registering the first four shots and not giving up any through the first seven minutes of the period.
Then at the 7:27 mark of the second, the game reached a critical juncture when Washington’s Dmitry Orlov delivered a high hit on Kevan Miller that knocked the beloved Bruin out of the game and sent him to the hospital for further evaluation.
Charlie Coyle responded right away by going after Orlov. Both ended up in the penalty box, with Orlov getting an extra two for the hit on Miller after an initial five-minute major call was questionably overturned upon review.
That’s when the killer instinct showed up. Thirty-three seconds into the ensuing power play, Brad Marchand tipped in a David Pastrnak shot to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead. The Capitals had made a mistake, and the Bruins responded by hitting them where it hurt the most -- on the scoreboard. It wouldn’t be the last time they did so in Game 4.
When Anthony Mantha went to the box for interference late in the second, Pastrnak struck for another power-play goal early in the third. When Mantha foolishly ran over Tuukka Rask later in the third as the Capitals tried to mount a comeback, Matt Grzelcyk buried a one-timer for a third power-play goal of the night and put the game well out of reach.
As they have for much of this series, Boston’s big guns led the way. When the Bruins’ top two lines were on the ice at five-on-five, they outshot the Capitals 18-3. Charlie McAvoy was a monster once again, registering three assists while playing 26:18. The Bruins had a 12-3 shots edge during his even-strength shifts, and he led the team in shorthanded time on ice at 8:49.
Then there’s Pastrnak. If any of the Bruins’ top players still had some questions to answer in this series, it was Pastrnak. He had not yet scored a goal in the series, and some had wondered if maybe he just couldn’t break through in a physical series like this.
Rest in peace, that narrative. Pastrnak, who actually already led all players in the series in shots even before putting a game-high six more on net Friday, was all around the crease in Game 4, and it was his shot that directly led to two power-play goals -- one that beat Ilya Samsonov clean and one that got tipped in by Marchand. Interestingly, both came from the right circle rather than his usual office in the left circle.
And physicality? How about landing one of the hits of the series? With about eight minutes left in the third and the Bruins leading 3-1, the always-dangerous Alex Ovechkin teed up a slapper from the high slot. Unfortunately for him, Pastrnak closed quickly and knocked him down mid-windup, putting an end to a potentially dangerous shot that could have cut the lead to one. (And for good measure, Marchand then knocked Ovechkin down again a second later.)
You could go up and down the Bruins lineup and find winning plays from just about everyone in this complete team effort. We’d be remiss not to mention Brandon Carlo and Connor Clifton, who repeatedly stood right in front of Ovechkin slap shots on the penalty kill, playing huge roles in holding the Capitals power play to a 1-for-7 showing. Coyle not only responded physically after Orlov’s hit, but he also scored a back-breaking goal to make it 3-0 just 34 seconds after Pastrnak had scored.
When it was all said and done, the Bruins had a 37-20 shots advantage, a 4-1 win and a 3-1 series lead. After three overtime games to start a series that had been as close as you can get, the Bruins separated themselves in every way Friday.
“We wanted it, and it showed,” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “Our game has gotten -- we’ve talked about getting better all the time as we go along. That includes this series and that includes period to period. We’re starting to see the results. … We’ve built our game here pretty good. I thought today, again, a good example of that. We got better as the game went on.
“So yes, I feel that we’ve really wanted to play the right way, get to the net, play behind their D, all of the things we’ve talked about that could make us successful. I think our guys have bought into it. … There’s always a few areas we’ve got to keep working on, but the will to win I think is there. I know it’s there. That’s one you have to have in the playoffs or you’re going nowhere. That has to be built in, and it is in our group right now.”
The Bruins still need to close out this series, something they’ll get a chance to do Sunday night in D.C. They’ll have a lot more work to do in the next round if and when they do.
This was big, though. The Bruins didn’t just match what should have been a desperate Capitals team or play them evenly in another one-goal game. They completely dominated and demoralized them. And they showed some mettle and “will to win” that any team hoping to make a deep run must have.
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