Capitals' Win Streak Ends
Bruins 3, Capitals 2

By Tarik El-Bashir
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Alex Ovechkin gave an honest effort every shift. It didn't look like all of his teammates did, at least not for the first 40 minutes.

The Washington Capitals' two-period letdown was just long enough for Wayne Primeau and the Boston Bruins, who jumped out to a three-goal lead at MCI Center, withstood a third-period surge and hung on for a 3-2 victory in front of 14,417.

The loss snapped the Capitals' four-game winning streak, their longest in three years. They had been looking to win five in a row for the first time since March 2001.

"That's not the way we've been playing lately," Capitals winger Brian Willsie said. "It's disappointing we didn't come out stronger. For one reason or another, we came out the way we came out two or three weeks ago."

Ovechkin didn't have a point, but he skated hard, hit harder and single-handedly generated scoring chances. But by the time his teammates matched his intensity, the injury-depleted Bruins -- and their unheralded goalie, Tim Thomas -- had grabbed a 3-0 lead.

"I don't know if you can expect your team to outwork people every single night," Capitals Coach Glen Hanlon said.

In the third period, the Capitals slowly began to resemble the outfit that knocked off the Carolina Hurricanes, one of the NHL's top teams, on Saturday.

Brooks Laich snapped a wrist shot past Thomas (22 saves) 2 minutes 51 seconds into the final frame to trim Washington's deficit to 3-2. Thomas -- and the goal post -- spent the next 17 minutes keeping the potential equalizer out of the Bruins' net.

Matt Pettinger fired wide of the net on a breakaway and Jeff Halpern whiffed on a wraparound attempt. But the best chance belonged to Ovechkin, who rang a shot off the post with under two minutes remaining. Thomas also made a diving save on Chris Clark moments later to clinch the win.

"It's not my day today," Ovechkin said of hitting the post. "We not play our hockey. We must play hard. The third period we play well, but we run out of time. We must forget it."

Ovechkin acknowledged the play of backup goalie Brent Johnson, who made 30 saves for the Capitals in his 10th start of the season. Starter Olie Kolzig was ill.

Ovechkin went pointless for the first time in nine games and only the 10th time all season.

Earlier in the day, Ovechkin was named offensive player of the week for the second time this month. With three goals and four assists in the Capitals' three victories last week, the 20-year-old Russian joined Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk and Carolina's Eric Staal as the only players to earn the honor twice in 2005-06.

Dainius Zubrus centered Ovechkin's line despite leaving Saturday's game with an arm injury. Halpern also returned to the lineup after missing the previous three games -- and seven total -- because of a sprained knee. But the Capitals again were without defensemen Jamie Heward (lower body injury) and Steve Eminger (ankle).

The Bruins, meantime, were significantly short-handed. Both of their regular goaltenders, Andrew Raycroft and Hannu Toivonen, were out with injuries. Defenseman Brian Leetch and first-line forwards Alexei Zhamnov and Glen Murray were also sidelined.

But it didn't seem to help the Capitals any -- particularly early, when the Bruins dominated play at both ends.

Washington trailed 1-0 after the first 20 minutes -- and were extremely fortunate it wasn't much, much worse. Boston outshot the home team 13-4, testing Johnson several times from point-blank range. Johnson turned away all except one, a splendid individual effort by Primeau, who shed Halpern behind the net, skated out front and banked the puck off the far post.

Primeau got his second goal by redirecting a long wrist shot from Nick Boynton past a screened Johnson at 10:29. At 16:37, Boston's Brad Boyes outraced Capitals defenseman Bryan Muir to the net, where he tapped in an awkward bounce off the end boards to stretch the Bruins' lead to three.

The Capitals finally got something going at 18:34 of the second when Willsie banged in a pass from Pettinger to make the score 3-1.

"We gave up that goal late in the second period and that kind of gave them life," Bruins Coach Mike Sullivan said. "The scoring chances they did get in the third period, I thought Timmy was there to make the save when we needed him, and for the most part we continued to do the things that brought up success the first two periods."