The Bruins and the Capitals were back to square one heading into game five. The teams each took two games and now it has become a best-of-three series with the Bruins having home ice. On Saturday afternoon, we witnessed arguably the most entertaining game of the series between the two teams.
The Bruins switched up the line combinations during Friday's practice in order to generate to some more offense. The lines were as follows:
Milan Lucic-David Krejci-Brian Rolston
Daniel Paille-Patrice Bergeron-Rich Peverley
Benoit Pouliot-Chris Kelly-Tyler Seguin
Brad Marchand-Gregory Campbell-Shawn Thornton
While those were the lines heading into the game, Bruins' head coach Claude Julien switched them up once again as the game went on.
After a scoreless first period that consisted of scrums, big hits, and great saves, the second period started to open up. The Capitals grabbed a 2-0 lead on goals scored by Alexander Semin and Jay Beagle. The B's defensive pair of Joe Corvo and Greg Zanon were stuck on the ice for an extended shift and were exhausted. During that time, Corvo got injured and could not get off the ice. This is what led to the Caps' first goal. The second one was an ugly, unassisted tally that the Bruins would have liked to have back.
From that point on, the game switched in favor of Boston. They also scored back-to-back goals in a 28 second span to tie the game. Seidenberg and Marchand were the goal scorers for the B's. With just a little incentive and hard work along the boards, Boston was able to record those goals. Marchand, along with Lucic and Krejci (who picked up assists on the goals) each picked up their first point of the series in this game.
Washington took the lead back when former Bruin Mike Knuble beat Tim Thomas stick side. Johnny Boychuk blasted a rocket past Caps' goaltender Braden Holtby to tie the game. The Capitals had the last laugh as Troy Brouwer recorded his second goal of the playoffs to give his team the lead for good. This was a power play goal as Benoit Pouliot took a slashing call. Bergeron had limited ice time towards the end of the game after taking a big hit from Alex Ovechkin.
Washington won this game by a score of 4-3 and take a 3-2 series lead. Game six will be Sunday afternoon back in Washington.
Gold Star: Brad Marchand (1 goal, 1 assist, 5 shots on goal)....He responded to the line changes in the best way possible: putting up two points.
Black Star: Tim Thomas (28 saves on 32 shots, 4 goals allowed, .875 save percentage)...He allowed a couple of soft goals that he would have normally saved. He was not on his game in this one.
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