Bruins censure Capitals

Red hot Boston continued their recent upswing, and Bill Guerin added to his team-leading thirteen goals of the season Bruins impeached the Capitals, 7-2, in Washington.

The Bruins improved to 8-1-1 in their last ten and 14-7-3 after opening the season 0-7. Meanwhile, the Caps are heading in the opposite direct, running 3-7-0 in their last ten games. The Capitals dropped to 2-12-2 at home on the year.

The game was knotted at two apiece through the eighth minute of the second period, before the Bruins offense opened up and scored five unanswered over the remainder of the second and the third period.

The scoring began when Martin Havlat played shorthanded, just one second after Sean Brown was whistled for an elbowing call. Interestingly, Brown also had the assist on Havlat's score.

Patrick Marleau tied the game six minutes later, for which the crowd rejoiced.

Havlat and Brown combined again for a quick goal come the second period, as Havlat took a pass from Brown and redirected it to Tim Connolly fifteen seconds into the second period. Connolly fired in a 10-footer past Peter Skudra for his eighth of the season.

A minute and a half later, Todd Warriner scored his eighth when Bryan Berard bounced a pass off the back boards to him, and he banged the short shot into the net past Raycroft. The crowd rejoiced.

Seven minutes later, the visitors made it 3-2 as Fran Kaberle got his third of the year when he banked his shot off Skudra's skate. Brian Rolston added one more in the waning seconds period to make the score 4-2.

Come the third period, it was all Bruins, though the shot sheet showed a near-even period, with the Bruins getting the 9-8 advantage. Martin Havlat scored his second of the night - eleventh of the year - at 01:19; Lars Jonsson notched a power play goal at 05:15; and Bill Guerin closed the nets for the night off a Jonsson-Hecht assist for his team leading thirteenth.

The hosts outshot the Bruins 34-28 but were on the short end of the score. A sickly power play (zero for seven) contributed to that. The Bruins were one for three.

The Bruins had two days off before they set to host the Flyers tonight, then will rest another day before touring Tampa, Florida and visiting the Lightning.