Haggs: No Mulligans For Boston Bruins After Game 1 Giveaway | BHN+

There could be all kinds of fancy breakdowns or shifting blame pointed in different directions following Saturday night’s Boston Bruins 3-2 OT loss in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoff first round series against the Washington Capitals.

Some will point toward Tuukka Rask letting up a weird goal for the overtime winner after the initial shot hit him in the chest and he kicked it into the net behind him.

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— James Stewart (@IAmJamesStewart) May 16, 2021

They are technically not wrong about the overtime winner, though Rask was far from the biggest issue for the Black and Gold stopping 29-of-31 shots through the opening 60 minutes.

Some will look at a Bruins power play that went just 1-for-4 and had PP possessions where they didn’t even gain momentum, never mind quality scoring chances against an emergency goalie in Craig Anderson making his fifth appearance this entire season. Those vocal naysayers certainly aren’t wrong either.

But the simple truth is that the Boston Bruins didn’t play their best hockey in a game where the Capitals came ready to play, hit the B’s early and often with board-rattling hits and did enough to win a one-goal playoff game in overtime. This is the eighth straight one-goal playoff game between the Bruins and Capitals in their playoff matchups together, so they might as well get used to it at this point.