Bruins at Capitals
Coming off his worst performance of the season, goaltender Braden Holtby looks to get back on track against an opponent he dominated last season when the Washington Capitals host the Boston Bruins on Thursday night. Holtby paced the Capitals to a three-game season sweep of the Boston Bruins, posting a shutout in each victory.
Holtby allowed four goals on the first 10 shots he faced in a 5-2 loss at the New York Rangers on Tuesday, Washington's first road loss. “A couple of them, I think, when Holts is on, he can get a couple of those,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. “We gave them some pretty good looks, too. He stopped a couple of pretty point-blankers, too. That’s the way it goes." The Bruins are coming off a 5-3 setback to Dallas to remain winless at home, but they will carry a perfect 5-0-0 road record into Thursday's matchup. Boston lost center Chris Kelly for the season with a broken left leg sustained in Tuesday's loss.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, NESN (Boston), CSN Washington
ABOUT THE BRUINS (6-4-1): Kelly was injured in the first two minutes of Tuesday's loss and his absence was felt when Dallas scored three power-play goals. “You hope we can somehow compensate for his loss, but I think people are going to realize how important he is to our hockey club, not just on the ice but also in the dressing room and around the team,” Boston coach Claude Julien said. Tuukka Rask is 1-6-3 lifetime against the Capitals, which could lead to a start by backup Jonas Gustavsson (3-0-0).
ABOUT THE CAPITALS (8-3-0): Holtby stopped all 88 shots in the three meetings against the Bruins last season to improve to 7-2-0 with a 1.58 goals-against average versus them. Captain Alex Ovechkin, who is tied with Evgeny Kuznetsov for the team lead with 13 points, scored his sixth goal Tuesday night to draw him within two of tying Sergei Fedorov (483) for the NHL record of most goals by a Russian-born player. Washington's normally potent power play has come up empty on all nine chances in the past four games.
OVERTIME
1. Capitals C Nicklas Backstrom set up two goals in each of the three wins last season and has four goals and 23 assists in 25 games versus Boston.
2. Boston has the league's worst penalty-killing rate at 70 percent.
3. Washington has not gone five consecutive games without a power-play tally since the 2011-12 season.