Boston Bruins: 3 adjustments B’s must make to even series vs Caps

No. 2: Boston Bruins need to get the Power Play going

It’s clear the Capitals are playing aggressive, but that style came back to bite them at times Game 1, as they had four penalties and spent more time on the kill then they would have liked.

Luckily for them though, the Bruins power play rarely showed any signs of life, and barely put any pressure on Washington when they had a man advantage.

If the Capitals are going to play aggressive and keep ending up with guys in the penalty box, it’s vital the Boston capitalize and get goals out of their power play unit.

The Caps dominated the Bruins power play, as the Bruins only went 1 for 4 on the power play, which is just too low of a conversion rate considering the amount of opportunities they had.

The best way to limit a power play line is to prevent them from getting into your zone, and that’s exactly what Washington did to the Bruins. They played high on their own blue line and did a great job at preventing Boston from entering their zone.

A large percentage of the Bruins offensive possessions during the power play were either denied access at the blue line or immediately spit back out by Washington just after clearing the line.

Even when Boston got past the blue line, they struggled to create many scoring chances. The first two power plays were as dry as could be, and you can probably make an argument that Washington had the best chance to score on either power play off of a shorthanded rush by Tom Wilson.

The Bruins finally made Washington pay on their third penalty, with Nick Ritchie just barely deflecting a shot from David Pastrnak by fill in goalie Craig Anderson.

It was the hardest we saw the B’s work all night, as Craig Smith made a fantastic play deep in the Caps zone to prevent the puck to be cleared, and the puck just snuck over the line moments later as a result. It’s effort like that will need to be much more common if the Bruins want to have more success in this series.

The final power play in the third period ultimately proved fruitless as well, and had they gotten things right, the Bruins could have pulled out the victory with a goal here. It was more of the same however, as the Bruins struggled to create many chances or keep the puck in the zone.

Clearly this needs to be worked on, as the Bruins can’t keep coughing up these opportunities. Coming up with ways to get into the Caps zone and create some opportunities off the power play is of utmost importance for Boston, as they let way too many golden opportunities go to waste in Game 1, and found themselves with a loss as a result.