Boston Bruins: 3 Keys to a Game 5 Win

Following Friday night’s convincing 4-1 win over the Washington Capitals at the TD Garden, the Boston Bruins head to Capital One Arena for tonight’s Game 5 with a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series and a chance to close out Caps and advance to the second round.

While that sounds great, it’s easier said than done. After losing the first game in overtime on May 15, the Black and Gold have won the last three games, two in overtime and one strong regulation win, to take command of the series.

The Bruins are a veteran team, so they know that the Capitals are not going to roll over and call it a series. Twice in their franchise history, they have come back from a 3-1 series deficit to advance in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The last time was in the 2009 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals when they completed a 3-1 comeback against the New York Rangers.

The Bruins are hoping to not be added to the list with Rangers and hope to close out the Capitals as early as tonight. If they are going to do it, these are three keys to a series-clinching victory.

3-Tuukka Rask

After giving up the game-losing overtime goal in Game 1, the Bruins goalie came under fire. Since then, all he has done is backbone three straight victories. Friday night, he made 19 saves and the only goal allowed was a deflection off of Brandon Carlo.

Rask has plenty of playoff experience and will not be nervous in any situation. His defense has done a nice job of allowing him to see a lot of the shots from far out and he has done a nice job of not leaving a lot of rebounds.

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.