Theodore Leads Caps to 11th Straight Win

Jose Theodore was brilliant all 60 minutes and the Caps' offense took until the third period to get into gear. But, when they did, the Caps scored three in the final stanza to beat the Boston Bruins, 4-1, tonight for their franchise-record 11th straight win.

Theo was the hero all night, making 41 saves -- many of the highlight-reel variety. The Bruins outshot the Caps, 13-5, in the first while the red, white and blue looked a bit lackadazical. However, the home-standing Bruins only had a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.

In the middle frame, the Caps started to tilt the momentum a bit, getting a goal from Mike Knuble at 2:04 and started to even the shots-on-goal marker.

By the time the final stanza was eight minutes old, the Caps had scored twice and put the game away. The game winner at 5:04 was set up by Alex Semin, who despite three penalties extended his streak with a point to 10 games. Semin gathered the puck along the boards and fed it to a wide-open Brooks Laich in the slot, who fired it past an out-of-position Tim Thomas. Just 2:47 later, Massachussets native Tom Poti found Boyd Gordon open and the grinder's second goal of the year made the record-setting win all but a sure thing.

Alex Ovechkin scored his 36th of the year into the empty net at 19:28 to provide the final margin. But it all could not have been done without the stellar play of Theodore, who quietly won his eighth straight game and shined all night in Beantown.