The Capitals, under coach Peter Laviolette, do a few things differently than a lot of other teams in the NHL, and that makes them uniquely difficult to play against.
Everything from their defensive strategy to their neutral zone trap to their power play is atypical.
The Bruins' challenge in this first-round series would be to find the weak spots in those schemes, and it looks like they're beginning to find a successful formula.
Here's how the Bruins have found ways to take advantage of the Capitals' game plan and take a 2-1 series lead in the process:
Exposing the Capitals' man-on-man defensive strategy
For teams in the East Division this season, including the Bruins, the Capitals' defense has presented a different type of challenge. It is designed to be high-pressure and allow players a minimal amount of time and space to make plays offensively. In Game 3, Taylor Hall was able to expose a flaw in that style of defending on his second-period goal.
"For the casual hockey fan, I don't know if they realize, but Washington plays man-on-man in their own zone, where the other 30 teams in the league play a zone defense, so it's a little different. If you can isolate your guy and beat your guy one-on-one you'll have some time," Hall said after the game.
"But obviously that's easier said than done."
Nullifying Washington's power-play threats
"I think the PK's been solid," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said.
To minimize quality power-play chances, his approach has been to decide which pieces of the Capitals' power play are more important to shut down and take away those threats first.
"We went through that debate like everyone does against Washington," Cassidy said. "What do you want to give up? Is it the [Alex] Ovechkin shot? Is it [T.J.] Oshie in the bumper? Is it that back-door [pass from Nicklas] Backstrom to whoever the netfront guy is, might be [Anthony] Mantha, might be [Evgeny] Kuznetsov? Or [John] Carlson shooting from the top?
"They have good weapons. So we made a decision how we would do it and we're not going to deviate from that. I think we've done a decent job against their power play, good pressure on entries, really working on our clears to support them as a group of four guys."
And it's true the Bruins' penalty kill has fared better than expected in the series, killing off 80% (8-of-10) of Washington's chances. That means the Caps have scored on 20% of chances compared to scoring on 31% of their opportunities in the regular-season series with Boston.
Reflecting the Caps' physicality and using it against them
Another area where the Caps were considered to have an advantage over Boston was in physicality. It wasn't that the Bruins aren't tough, but rather could they match the quantity and quality of hits? Could they survive the onslaught without being injured or worn out?
"I think we have not been intimidated for one second by the physicality of their team. I didn't expect us to be," Cassidy said.
"We've had a season series with them where we matched them hit for hit."
Cassidy praised the way his team has matched up in that realm, saying, "We're trying to play hard when the situation dictates, be physical against their good players, and as the series goes on hopefully you wear them down doing that."
Being able to equal the Capitals' physically means that the Bruins are able to make sure Washington doesn't wear them out at a quicker rate.
Instead of one team beating up on the other, both could get a little banged up, which opens the door in the series to the team that is deepest and best conditioned.
Cassidy said he's already seen the Bruins use that to their advantage.
"Keep your pace up. I thought we did that [Wednesday] night, got really skating in the overtimes and showed our conditioning level," he said.
Because the Bruins' system has been focused on a combination of both physicality and conditioning, they've been able to outlast the Capitals as games head into overtime. That overtime energy was showcased in Game 3, when the Bruins created 19 shots through one and a quarter OT frames compared to the Capitals' eight.
Though the Bruins have been able to pick apart some of Washington's game plan, they still are having difficulty with some things the Capitals do, in particular with the Caps' penalty kill.
Details that have to get better
The Bruins have already made some important adjustments, as listed above. Keep paying attention to them as you watch the rest of the series. The key for the Bruins to finish out the series strong is to continue to make adjustments on the things they're still having issues with. Those things include the Capitals' 'in-your-face' penalty kill and not being baited into penalties in scrums after the whistle.
Overcoming the Capitals' tight penalty-kill pressure
After the Bruins went 1-for-5 on the man advantage in their Game 3 win over the Capitals on Wednesday, Cassidy emphasized that a main area that his team needs to work on before Game 4 is how they can get away from the pressure of Washington's penalty kill.
"Power play, the biggest issue for us is handling their pressure," Cassidy said. "They're pressuring every entry, faceoff or any 50-50 puck."
One of the reasons David Krejci and Charlie McAvoy were switched into the top power-play unit Wednesday was to counter the Capitals' close pressure in those areas.
Cassidy explained why the move to bring Krejci alongside Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand and McAvoy on the top unit should help them get better results on the man advantage:
"With Krejci on his strong side, he's got so many options," Cassidy said. "Drop off for March forehand to forehand, and then maybe a bumper play to Bergy or back-door to Pasta. He's got the seam to Pasta and the play into Bergy in the bumper or a shot threat, he can go behind the back, up top to Charlie, so all one-timers are in play."
"We just decided to load up, make it simple," Cassidy said about his new top power-play unit.
Power-play faceoff issues
Another sub-category of the Bruins' power-play issues comes from their lack of faceoff success on the man advantage.
"I think where Washington's done a good job too is in the faceoff dot. I think they've done well on the PK. We haven't started with the puck as much as we typically have and that's a big advantage," Cassidy explained.
Simply put, when the Capitals win the draw they have a better chance to clear the puck, waste power play time, and get fresh legs on the ice.
"We just didn't have extended time in there to tire them out," Cassidy added.
No more penalties in the scrum
This one is pretty straightforward and luckily an easy fix.
If Marchand stops tapping people in the face with his stick for fun after the whistle, the problem is pretty much solved, assuming the rest of the team stays as disciplined as they have.
Marchand's three penalties in the series were all from unnecessary aggressions after the play was dead. And some were costly.
Marchand's stick work after the whistle up high on Brenden Dillon led to an Ovechkin power-play goal that gave the Capitals a 1-0 lead in Game 3. In Game 2, Marchand got away with matching penalties when he did the same thing to Anthony Mantha.
"We've got a couple of penalties in scrums we're going to have to be mindful of," Cassidy said Thursday.
An undisciplined penalty can be a turning point to a game and to a series, so this may be the most important adjustment of all.
