Bruins voted down by Capitols

Looking to repeat their previous tail-whoopin of the Washington club, the Boston Bruins took to their home ice last night with a bit of a swagger.

As it turns out, they shouldn't have.

The Bruins struck out to an early lead, with Pierre Turgeon, filling in for the injured Matt Hartigan, scoring early on a Tim Connolly-Peter Sykora assist at the 04:25. Ten minutes later, Fran Kaberle fed Andy McDonald twenty feet out, which McDonald turned and wristed past Manny Legace for his eleventh of the season.

The first period eas mostly marred by thuggery, with twenty-two penalty minutes doled out to the two teams. Amazingly, despite that tally, there were no power play goals in the first.

The second, though, was different. Martin Havlat's unsportsmanlike conduct whistle carried into the second period, and the Capitals capitalized (pun intended), as Johnny Cheechoo made the home team pay 00:51 in. Eight seconds later, Franny Lukes beat Raycroft again to knot the game at two.

As Boston scrambled and lost their focus - attempting just twelve shots on the period - Artem Chubarov took advantage of the confusion, beating Raycroft for the third time in the period. Heads hanging, the Bruins retreated to the lockerroom down 3-2.

The Bruins attacked come the third period, outshooting the Caps 13-5 in the period. Jochan Hecht scored what is referred to as a power play goa following a call on Bryan Berard for roughing at 01:00, putting the hosts in a 5 on 3 situation. They couldn't capitalize with the two man advantage, but scored with only seven seconds remaining in the power play to tie it up.

Continuin on the offensive, the team found little luck but bad. Jonathan Cheechoo found it necessarily to not just kick the dog, but stomp on it, as he scored the winning goal on Raycroft just short of ten minutes into the period.

Raycroft stopped 24 of 28 shots - a likely indicator of road-weariness to drop to 14-13-3 on the year, and the Bruins failed to make the most of their power plays, going one-for-six.

"Well, next up is Atlanta," GM Joshua Anderson stated. "Guess we'll take it out on them."