2-Keep shooting on whoever is net for the Capitals.
As strange as it sounds, the Capitals have had three different goalies start in the first four games. Vitek Vanecek started Game 1 and left with 6:50 remaining in the first period when he was injured trying to make a save on a Jake DeBrusk goal.
Veteran Craig Anderson replaced Vanecek and won Game 1, but started and lost Game 2 in overtime. Ilya Samsonov, who has taken off of the COVID-19 protocols list before Game 1, started Games 3 and 4 and lost both.
In Game 3, he had some miscommunication with defensemen Justin Schultz, which led to Craig Smith stealing the puck and wrapping it under Samsonov in double-overtime. Friday night, he was beaten four times, three times in the third period, in a 4-1 loss.
The last game action Samsonov saw before Game 3 was on May 1. He’s a young goalie and he has recently shown why there were some rumors going around at the trade deadline that the Caps might be in the market for a goalie. They stood pat.
Anderson and Samsonov have both left some juicy rebounds in this series and will continue to do so. Pucks and bodies to the net still have to be the Bruins mentality. It worked in Game 2 when Taylor Hall stuffed home a rebound late in the third period to force overtime, which led to a Brad Marchand winner 39 seconds into the extra session.