December 23 - The Boston Bruins look to enter the holidays with their first five-game unbeaten streak of the season as they host the Washington Capitals on Monday night.
The game marks Boston's second since concluding a five-game Western Conference road trip late last week and follows a 3-1 Saturday win over the Buffalo Sabres in which Morgan Geekie scored the deciding goal with 1:45 remaining.
Interim head coach Joe Sacco, whose Bruins are on a 3-0-1 run and have a 10-4-1 record since he took over, knows the importance of Monday's game against another surging club.
Both teams are 7-2-1 across their last 10 games.
"I think it's a good opportunity for our group, and we've had a couple of them here lately, to see where we stack up with some of the better teams that are playing a good, consistent brand of hockey," Sacco said. "It's right before a three-day break, and you want to go into that feeling good about your game."
Coming off two weeks away from home, the Bruins' last outing was not pretty at times, but a two-goal finish allowed them to bank a divisional victory.
The game-winning goal was also a marker for Boston's power play, which ranks second-to-last in the NHL (13.2 percent) and had been scoreless in three of the previous four games.
Captain Brad Marchand then iced the game with an empty-netter, giving him a point in nine straight.
"It's always tough that first game back (because) you want to have your best for the home crowd, but I like the way we fought and battled to get the two points," Geekie said. "We've got one more game to stay dialed in for before a nice break, so that's at the top of our list right now."
Washington, which has an Eastern Conference-leading 23 wins and owns the highest point percentage in the NHL at .727, is Boston's second straight opponent coming from home to finish a back-to-back at TD Garden.
The Capitals were 3-1 winners Sunday over the Los Angeles Kings, receiving a two-goal performance from Aliaksei Protas. Jakub Vrana also scored for the second straight game.
"Not the game we wanted in terms of the quality of the game we had, but we found a way to win," Protas said. "Everybody's working together. We've got a great team."
With the multi-goal effort, Protas tied his career high of 29 points in just 33 games. He reached that total in 78 games last season.
Though the Capitals have allowed three or fewer goals in nine consecutive games, and two or fewer in seven of those, they scored more than three only twice during that span.
The current run preceded three high-scoring victories -- 6-5, 5-4 and 5-4, including one in overtime -- to end the month of November.
All told, Washington is 16-1-1 this season when holding opponents to two or fewer goals.
"If you (defend) at a high level, you give yourselves a chance to win no matter how many goals you're scoring," Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. "And over the last little bit, I feel like we've done a much better job of that as we were able to score our way through some of those issues (earlier in the season)."
The only NHL team with more wins than Washington is the Winnipeg Jets, who have played two more games and have one more win.
Capitals star Alex Ovechkin will soon return from a mid-November left fibula fracture, though it will not be until after the holiday break. Ovechkin, who scored 15 goals in 18 games to start the season, practiced in full on Friday.
