"Everything went wrong today," said Marco Sturm.
Washington is notorious for the stink of partisan politics. But last night, there was a particularly foul odor emanating from all things black and gold at the Verizon Center, the stage for a hockey game that turned into an embarrassment. The Capitals scored six first-period goals - the second-most a Bruins team ever has allowed in one period (Boston gave up seven to Detroit March 4, 1945).
"Unfortunately we weren't ready for it," said Julien. "When you're not ready for it, you can't just turn on a switch and adjust. The damage was done in the first eight minutes."
The Bruins entered Washington with six straight wins' worth of swagger, hungry to make it seven against a club that is currently out of playoff contention.
But the Capitals, energized by deadline-day deals that brought forwards Sergei Fedorov and Matt Cooke and goalie Cristobal Huet to the nation's capital, looked like a lethal blend of Wayne Gretzky's Oilers and the Broad Street Bullies before 17,189 at their home rink.
With skill, speed, and a pleasure in belting every opponent in sight, the Capitals rolled over the Bruins with eight goals to spare and reduced a mountain of confidence into a pile of rubble that will require a significant effort to repair.
"It was one of those nights where the harder you try, the worse it gets," said Zdeno Chara. "It happened, we had a bad game, and we have to put it behind us. We have another game [tonight] and we have to recover as fast as possible."
Yesterday morning, after his players whizzed through an efficient morning skate, Julien had the following prediction:
"It's probably going to be our toughest game tonight. This is a team where I don't care what their record is. They're a tough team to play against. We anticipate it being a hard-fought match tonight."
Julien was dead-on about Washington being a tough matchup for his club. Where Julien went wrong, however, was his belief that the game would be hard-fought by his team.
