This past Saturday, January 30th, Boston Bruins’ defenceman, Zdena Chara, faced his former teammates for the first time since joining the Washington Capitals. After fourteen years as the Bruins’ captain, Chara announced his departure from the Boston team at the beginning of the 2020-2021 season, explaining how he wanted to branch out and not be a reserved player. “I wanted to have a chance to compete,” Chara explained in an interview with ESPN. he then went on to confirm that he and his former teammate are still close. But, when it comes to the game, those friendships are forced to take the backseat. 

Since the announcement, the Capitals, and Bruins have yet to face each other during the season. However, that changed over the weekend where the teams faced each other in the Capital One Arena. The Washington Capitals won in an overtime win, 4-3, Alex Ovechkin scoring twenty-eight seconds into overtime. 

For almost the first two periods, the Capitals scored three times unanswered. Frist from Nicklas Backstrom in the first period, unassisted. Following, Trevor van Riemsdyk gained the Capitals another goal, just over five minutes into the second period. Five more minutes later, another point was gained for the Washington team, this time by Richard Panik. 

With only three minutes remaining in the second period, Bruins’ player, Nick Ritchie, seemed to change the tone of the game, gaining a power-play goal. The third period mirrored the first, this time for Boston. Brad Marchand scored six minutes, followed by Chale McAvoy. Who, with only fifty-eight seconds remaining in the game, earned another goal for Boston, tying.  the game up and forcing it to go into overtime. 

Alex Ovechkin, who did not play for the last six minutes of the third period, was placed back in the game, and in less than half a minute, scored, winning the game for Washington. Capital’s coach Peter Laviolette said in an interview after the game, “As soon as the overtime started, I thought [Ovechkin] might be fresh, so we put him out there and he delivered.”

Despite the loss, assistant Bruin’s captain, Brad Marchand went on to say how “We’ve always been a resilient team. We knew we weren’t going to quit…we just wanted to keep pushing. I think the biggest thing was we were winning the battle and funneling everything to the net.“

The two teams are set to face again, Monday, at 7:00 pm EST, once again, on Washington’s home turf.