Bruins are possible foe in 1st round of playoffs
One more week and the Capitals finally will be done with the NHL regular season. One more week and they can begin preparing for their first-round opponent in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
It may even be the team they see Monday night at Verizon Center — the Boston Bruins, who have bounced between sixth and ninth place in the Eastern Conference since the Olympic break ended March 1. The Bruins (36-30-12, 84 points) are in a wild scramble for the final three playoff spots with Montreal (39-32-8, 86 points), Philadelphia (39-34-6, 84 points), the New York Rangers (36-32-10, 82 points) and the Atlanta Thrashers (34-32-13, 81 points). Each team has three or four games remaining — not much time to make up ground if it should slip again this week.
The Caps already have beaten the Bruins twice this season, and Boston still is without star center Marc Savard, the victim of a blind-side hit in a game last month. He is out with severe post-concussion symptoms. Yet somehow Boston has survived without its top playmaker.
Meanwhile, the Caps (51-15-12, 114 points) have locked up the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. They set a franchise record for wins with Saturday’s 3-2 victory at Columbus, and 23 of those victories have come on the road — also a franchise record.
“Well, it’s nice to set records. It gives us a goal to shoot for again next year,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters after Saturday’s win. “And it’s nice to get the 51st win. We were stuck on 49 there for a while, and to get back-to-back games is good. But it’s more significant that [goalie Jose Theodore] had a good game and that for the most part we played fairly good defensively.”
Theodore stopped 34 of 36 Blue Jackets shots. That performance helped quiet any thoughts of using rookie Semyon Varlamov as the No. 1 goalie in the playoffs. Theodore started in that same spot last spring only to be pulled after one bad game in the first round against the Rangers.
