Inside the NHL | Washington caps off season series with win over Bruins

    Baseball Hall of Famer Lefty Gomez once said, "I'd rather be lucky than good."
    The Washington Capitals proved that the saying is just as applicable in hockey, as the Caps took advantage of a pair of lucky bounces to beat the Boston Bruins 4-3 in overtime at TD Banknorth Garden on Saturday. The win gave Washington the season series three games to one in a battle of Eastern Conference giants.
    The game-winning goal came on an 80-foot slap shot from the neutral zone by Caps forward Alexander Semin that took a funny ricochet off the ice and handcuffed Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, bouncing off his glove and into the goal. Coach Claude Julien was not pleased that his Bruins lost on a soft goal just 22 seconds into overtime.
    "Call it a lucky goal, a bad goal. We can call it what we want, but those are shots that shouldn't go in," Julien said in his postgame press conference. "That last goal was a bad goal, and he can say all the things that happened with the puck, but the bottom line is, you should tell yourself ‘I should have had it, I didn't have it, turn the page and let's move on.'"
    The Bruins were also victimized earlier in the game by a Tomas Fleischmann power-play goal that ricocheted in behind Thomas off of Boston defenseman Dennis Wideman's skate.
    Of course, sometimes teams help make their own luck, and the Capitals have been playing very solid hockey. Coach Bruce Boudreau downplayed the lucky aspects of the win.
    "I thought we had two clear-cut breakaways," he said. "We had the lead at 3-2 and we had two unbelievably good chances where we could have put it away to make it 4-2."
    Both teams played well despite plenty of missed opportunities, setting a pace that befitted a matchup between the top two teams in the Eastern Conference. The Capitals came in on a hot 9-3-1 streak in their last 13 games. The Bruins had played very well in their last two games against the Florida Panthers and Anaheim Ducks, potting six goals in each of those games while allowing just one combined. On Saturday, all three regulation Capitals goals were scored to take a one-goal lead, and each time the Bruins responded relatively quickly. Other than the power play, Bruins center Marc Savard thought that the Bruins generally had the upper hand.
    "I thought at times, especially five-on-five, we probably outplayed them," he said. "They had a lot of power plays tonight and they've got some gifted guys. They're going to score goals if they get out with power plays."
    Savard's assessment is accurate, as the Caps have relied on their power play to spur their high-flying offense. Their power play is second in the league, converting 24.5 percent of opportunities. Against a strong Bruins penalty kill (sixth in the NHL), the Capitals managed to go to the well twice in five opportunities.
    Recently, not many teams have been doing a particularly good job against the Capitals, who are enjoying a renaissance under the second-year Boudreau — a midseason hiring in 2007-08 with no previous NHL coaching experience. Nevertheless, he guided a young and defensively fragile team to the playoffs with a 37-17-7 record over 61 games.
    "[The Capitals] are a good team," Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron said. "They have a lot of talent. It was kind of [giving us an] idea of what it's like in the playoffs."
    Washington star Alex Ovechkin is looking forward to the playoffs and does not much care whether his Caps are in first or second in the East when that time comes.
    "We want to be in the playoffs," he said. "If you're first in the conference or the division it doesn't matter. You're not going to [automatically] be in the Stanley Cup Finals."
    Still, the Caps have taken a boost from their victory in the season series over the Bruins, their first since 1982-83.
    "We've done a lot of firsts so far this year — let's hope we can continue," Boudreau said. "If it gets down to the finals, which is the only place where we might meet [Boston] if we're lucky enough to get there, it would probably be a good series."
    Washington will have to be both lucky and good to make it to the conference finals, but if it maintains its current level of play, a potential Stanley Cup Final berth is within reach.
    Still, Julien did not take very kindly to the idea that somehow the Capitals would have an advantage in the playoffs due to the season series.
    "I've heard them say that they think they're in our heads, and they do a lot of talking," Julien said. "They obviously don't do a lot of research."
    Boudreau and his Capitals might have more on their plates than they bargain for if they get lucky enough to go to the finals. The Bruins and goalie Tim Thomas are spoiling for a potential conference final matchup despite the season series' difficulty.
    "He who gets the last laugh laughs the hardest, so we will see what happens," Thomas said.