Tim Thomas vs. Braden Holtby: Experience Prevails in Game 1 of Bruins-Caps

As fate would decide the opening game of the Boston Bruins-Washington Capitals series, each goaltender would have one chance apiece to repel a shot that would instantaneously decide their duel.

With 73 seconds gone in overtime, the 37-year-old Tim Thomas, playing his first postseason game since lassoing the Conn Smythe, Vezina and Stanley Cup, stoned Washington’s Marcus Johansson.

Only five more ticks elapsed before Chris Kelly swooped in on the other end in virtually identical fashion. When he unleashed a distant slapper, the 22-year-old Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby, playing in his first Stanley Cup playoff game ever, lacked a sufficient response.

As a consequence, the host Bruins claimed a 1-0 decision and raised a 1-0 upper hand in the 2012 Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

It would be virtually impossible and wholly unfair to lay any blame on Holtby for one measly, albeit costly, blink in this classic goaltender’s staring contest. The way he held up throughout the first 61 minutes as seamlessly as Thomas did and the way the battle abruptly ended in the 62nd minute simply spoke to disproportionate resumes in the creases.

With the win, Thomas improves to a lifetime NHL playoff record of 27-17, including a 6-4 mark in sudden-death struggles. He has pitched six postseason shutouts, including last year’s Cup clincher and this year’s opener.

Dating back to when there was only 2:26 to spare in Game 6 of last year’s championship round, Thomas is now fostering a playoff shutout streak of 123 minutes and 44 seconds.

With all this being said, a few words of caution are in order for Bruins buffs and a few words of confidence are owed to the Washington faithful.

With the exception of their first-round bout with Montreal in 2008, every playoff series the Bruins have participated in under Claude Julien have either ended in a sweep or with the winner of Game 1 ultimately losing.

And naturally, the scale on Thursday’s arm-wrestling bout could have tipped in either direction and in no way was the unripe Holtby a nonfactor in that.

The Bruins’ most radiant invitation to pull ahead in regulation was a sequence of events wrapped around the first intermission. More than half of a double-minor sentence to Washington’s Jay Beagle carried over to a fresh sheet in the second intermission.

Out of Boston’s 16 attempted shots in those four minutes of five-on-four, seven were blocked by one of Holtby’s skating mates, while the stopper himself handled another seven. The incessant pressure from the Bruins’ power-play brigade did not break the scoreless knot, but it did bend Washington’s Troy Brouwer in the direction of a desperate infraction.

Within two seconds of Beagles’ jailbreak, Brouwer spooned a Patrice Bergeron rebound off the porch and off the protective netting, warranting a delay-of-game penalty and granting his mates no chance to build upon their hard-earned kill.

As it happened, though, the Caps would simply follow up with another hard-earned kill, this time never allowing the Bruins to pester Holtby, who would ultimately block all 17 shots-faced in the middle stanza.

Both goaltenders also had their turn warding off natural rust that comes with protracted periods of inactivity. The back-to-back power plays for Boston contributed to Washington’s inability to pelt Thomas at any point in the first half of the second period.

Later on, starting with 4:42 left in the middle frame and ending with 8:13 gone in the third period, the Bruins could not muster a single stab at Holtby.

Yet after those 12 minutes and 55 seconds, which also sandwiched the second intermission, the Caps’ netminder was ready to answer three sparsely distributed shots through the conclusion of regulation.

The same, however, held true for Thomas and the nine shots he dealt with in the third period after needing to answer only seven within the first 40 minutes.

But once the spontaneous third intermission came and went, the implications changed.

While Thomas and Holtby were both blemish-free on the night, there would now be no chance for anyone to recompense their goaltender’s first shortcoming.

The instantly amplified pressure very well may have factored into Thomas going one-for-one on his overtime shots while Kelly managed to beat Holtby on the ensuing counterattack.

Holtby gave himself and the Caps plenty to build upon for the balance of the series, but the seasoned, ring-bearing Bruins have the early, tangible advantage for a reason.

And after playing just his second game in the last six days and his third in the last 12, the ever-toiling Thomas looks to be inhaling an invaluable second wind.