3. Comeback vs. the Caps

This was a game that I attended, and was pretty pumped at first, then pretty disappointed until there were literally about 4 minutes left in the game, at which point I was pumped again.

First, Milan Lucic and Matt Bradley, dropped the gloves at...0:05 of the first period. Why wait?



"DOWN GOES BRADLEY!"

This was all only a week after the Bruins got completely destroyed by the Caps in DC, by a 10-2 score.

9 seconds after that bout, we got this...



After all of that, there wasn't much in the way of action until the Capitals scored with around 13 minutes to go in the first period, and that was it until near the end of the third.

The Caps took the lead into the first intermission, and even after that the Bruins didn't do all that much, failing to generate many chances and often getting bogged down in the defensive zone. As the game entered the third period, and as the clock began to tick down, it looked like the B's were heading for a 1-0 loss, a huge disappointment.

Then, Donald Brashear got called for a high-sticking double-minor, and decided he'd follow it up by doing this...



...which earned him a two minute minor for roughing as well. That's right, in a span of literally 7 seconds, Brashear earned himself six minutes in the penalty box, and, since one was a double-minor, the Bruins could score once and he still wouldn't be able to come out.

After killing the first 1:13 seconds of the Bruins power-play, the Caps decided to shoot themselves in the foot again, as Jon Erskine (who in a different game was one of the few players to soundly defeat Milan Lucic in fight all season) went to the box for hooking, giving the B's four and a half minutes of a two-man advantage.

Just 17 seconds later, Zdeno Chara ripped home a slap shot that rattled in off of the crossbar, tying the game. For some reason (a rule stipulation that I'm not entirely sure of), no one came out of the box for Washington, putting the B's back on the two-man advantage. After Washington killed off the remainer of that advantage, the B's were still on the power-play due to Brashear's brilliant decisions.

However, again shooting themselves in the foot, Tom Poti took a slashing penalty 30 seconds after Erskine left the box, giving the Bruins ANOTHER tw0-man advantage. 40 seconds later, David Krecji slid a perfect pass through the crease of noted Bruins-killer Cristobal Huet that landed on the tape of Marco Sturm's stick. Sturm had all day to fire the puck into the net, and gave the Bruins the lead at 17:44 of the third period.

The Bruins couldn't put the puck in the net for 55 minutes, then scored 2 goals in three minutes to sink the Capitals. It was a great way to avenge the 10-2 loss from the week before, and since they were able to ice the Caps in regulation, they prevented them from getting a point, which, considering the Caps were fighting for the playoffs just like the B's at the time, turned out to be big.

Also, aside from the win on the ice, this game also featured a dance-off between Mustache Guy, who is always plastered and dancing at the Bruins, and WBCN's Crash. It was some pretty funny stuff.



Game highlights are below.