NHL Playoffs 2012: 4 Goats in the Boston Bruins-Washington Capitals Series

When the defending Stanley Cup champions and one of the ostensible favorites lose a first-round matchup that has each team barely averaging two goals per game and all seven games decided by a single goal, the offense is not the prime target for blame.

It should be the only target.

The Boston Bruins never reaped enough scoring, secondary scoring and special teams’ production to get a comfortable edge on the Washington Capitals and goaltender Braden Holtby.

They never mustered a multi-goal lead, scored first in only two of the seven contests and never led after the second period, which was their biggest boon in the regular season. In fact, the only intermission that saw them harboring a lead was the 20-minute mark of Game 5.

They could have made the Caps pay for a penalty here. They could have cleared the zone or dumped the puck a little smarter there. They could have pounced for possession from the drop of the puck a little more assertively here and there.

For a team as deep and prolific as the Bruins have been for the better part of recent memory, winning more of those 2-1 decisions ought to have been more doable. Well, either that or transforming those 2-1 scores into 3-2 or 4-2 victories.

But as it happened, of the games decided by a 2-1 margin, including Wednesday night’s Game 7, Washington was victorious in all three. And the following entities are most responsible for making Boston’s life harder en route to a premature exit.

Benoit Pouliot

After assisting on Chris Kelly’s Game 1 clincher and inserting an ultimately vain equalizer in Game 2, Pouliot dished out diddlysquat for the remainder of the series. And he can claim substantial responsibility for ending the series in light of his unrecorded turnover Wednesday night.

During a neutral-zone scrum in overtime, Pouliot dumped the puck too hard and too hastily and right into a forest of white uniforms. As a consequence, the biscuit landed on the blade of Mike Knuble, who collaborated with Joel Ward on a textbook two-on-one to finish off the 2-1 final.

And as much as some are inclined to question the call, one could claim that Pouliot played a part in costing Game 5 as well. He was the one watching from the sin bin for slashing when Troy Brouwer scored late in regulation to finalize Washington’s 4-3 triumph and raise a 3-2 upper hand for the Caps.

If not for that, maybe Boston would have finished this off in its favor in Game 6.

Milan Lucic

His physicality was noticeable enough, but whatever happened to the freshman, sophomore and junior Lucic who channeled some of his energy and passion to the postseason goal and assist column?

What happened to the Lucic who scored 10 goals in his first 30 career NHL playoff games, including three in Game 7s?

What happened to the second-longest tenured Bruins' forward on the active roster?

Like Pouliot, Lucic underachieved on the scoresheet with three assists and no goals in the series. And like Pouliot, Lucic gave away a precious Washington puck in Game 7, one that led to Matt Hendricks’ ominous icebreaker in the opening frame.

David Krejci

Krejci won only 51 out of 115 faceoffs in the series, including a mere five out of 15 in Game 7.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the four times he lost the majority of his draws were the four times the Bruins lost the game. And even in two of their three victories, he won a mere 50 percent.

When his line had possession, Krejci did not make many ripples in the series outside of Game 6, when he tallied a goal, an assist and five shots on net. Over the other six contests, he accumulated one assist, six shots and a minus-one rating.

The Entire Power Play

The unit finally clicked in the midst of a shortcoming rally during Saturday’s Game 5. It tucked in another conversion as part of a (temporarily) season-saving victory on Sunday.

But when the time came to decide the series on Wednesday, the Bruins’ man-advantage strike force regressed to its arid tendencies. It thus wasted what was practically a written invitation as Boston garnered three power plays in Game 7 as opposed to only one for Washington.

As admirably gracious as the TD Garden masses were once the defeat was decided, they could not be blamed for booing their team’s prom-night pimple earlier in the evening. Boston whiffed on four extra-man shots on goal while granting the Caps a pair of short-handed stabs at Bruins goalie Tim Thomas.