Patrice Bergeron scored twice while teammate David Pastrnak added a goal and an assist and goalie Tuukka Rask made 40 saves as the visiting Boston Bruins clinched their first-round playoff series with a 3-1 victory over the Washington Capitals in Game 5 Sunday night.
The Bruins won this series 4-1 and now will play the winner of the Pittsburgh-New York Islanders series in the second round. That series is deadlocked at 2-2.
Rask was up to the task once again as Boston seemed content to play defense most of the time after it took the lead in the second period. Washington outshot the Bruins, 41-19, and Rask remained steady throughout.
The Washington power play again couldn’t cause trouble. They were 0-for-4 in this game and just 1-for-10 in the past two.
Washington had problems finding good scoring chances against a Bruins’ defense that seemed to be faster than the Caps, which slowed the usually high-scoring team down throughout the series.
The Bruins held an early 8-2 lead in shots before Washington began stepping up its offense, especially in the second period. That’s when the Capitals outshot Boston 20-4 in that stanza but couldn’t score.
Meanwhile, the Bruins scored twice and took the lead for good.
Pastrnak gave Boston a 1-0 lead 2:28 into the second period. He got the puck near the left boards in Washington’s end and made two slick moves — the first coming when he slid the puck between his legs — that beat two Capital defenders and put a quick shot past goalie Ilya Samsonov.
Bergeron made it 2-0 later in the period after a Washington turnover near the blue line. Pastrnak pushed it to Mike Reilly, who fed Bergeron, and the forward ripped a hard shot past Samsonov with 5:55 left in the period.
Reilly also assisted on Pastrnak’s goal.
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Washington finally broke through when Conor Sheary scored on a rebound just 11 seconds into the third period, cutting the lead to 2-1. Bergeron then put one past Samsonov with 7:35 left for some insurance.
The Capitals appeared to score about two minutes later but the officials waved it off due to goaltender interference. This is the third straight year Washington has lost in the first round of the playoffs.
–Field Level Media