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BOX SCORE
BOSTON (AP) -- Boston coach Mike Keenan gave a lovey-dovey
postgame talk about how well his new players supported each other.
Washington coach Ron Wilson was doing a fair impersonation of his
usually volatile counterpart.
"You guys shouldn't be able to sleep tonight, the way you
played," Wilson could be heard yelling at his team through the
door to the locker room after the Bruins beat the Capitals 4-1 in
Keenan's Boston debut.
|  | | Jason Allison, right, fought for possession and later scored to give Boston a 2-0 lead in the first. |
Jason Allison scored twice and Andrew Raycroft stopped 27 shots
for Boston to snap a four-game losing streak that cost coach Pat
Burns his job. P.J. Axelsson and Mikko Eloranta also scored for the
Bruins.
"He (Keenan) has been calm, cool and collected," Raycroft
said. "It's a little bit easier to be like that when you're up 2-0
and you get a 4-1 victory."
Craig Billington stopped 39 shots, and Joe Sacco scored
Washington's lone goal.
Keenan, whose combustibility in five previous NHL coaching jobs
earned him the nickname "Iron Mike," inherited a team that didn't
respond to Burns -- himself no slouch as a motivator. The Bruins
fired Burns on Wednesday -- just eight games into his fourth season
with the team -- after they followed a 3-0-1 start with four
consecutive losses.
Asked if the team was trying to impress the new boss, Keenan
said, "I hope so. That's what they're supposed to be doing."
But Thursday's victory may have had more to do with the
opponent. The Capitals dropped to 1-4-3 with the loss.
"I told the team that the Bruins would be emotional," Wilson
told reporters after his 10-minute, closed-door tirade. "But we
caved under the pressure."
It may be too late for Burns, but he was right about one thing:
Joe Murphy is a discipline problem. The Washington forward was
released by Boston last season for insubordination after getting
into a shouting match with Burns during a game.
On Thursday, Murphy drew a four-minute penalty when he took one
Bruins player down and punched another in the face at the 7:40 mark
of the third. Boston scored twice on the resulting power play to
turn a 2-1 game into a blowout.
Allison scored his second goal of the game when he flipped a
shot in off a Washington defenseman with 10:23 left in the game.
Eloranta beat Billington 50 seconds later to give Boston a 4-1
lead.
Burns took over the Bruins after they finished last in the
league in 1996-97 and led them to the biggest turnaround in
franchise history in the next season. But with Ray Bourque's trade
and Marty McSorley's suspension, plus injuries to Allison, Anson
Carter and Byron Dafoe, the Bruins missed the playoffs for the
second time in 30 years last season.
Burns promised to make changes to keep his job. Eight games in,
however, general manager Harry Sinden decided things weren't
getting any better.
With Dafoe injured again, Sinden hired Keenan with the words:
"Welcome. You don't have a goalie."
But Raycroft, a rookie, did fine.
"It's a very difficult position for a 20-year-old goaltender to
be put in," Keenan said. "He's our go-to guy, whether we want it,
or he wants it."
Raycroft held the Capitals scoreless in the first period, while
Jonathan Girard and Allison scored to give Boston a 2-0 lead. Sacco
scored with 1:15 left in the second period to make it 2-1.
Game notes
Keenan has coached in 996 NHL games. ... The Capitals
didn't have a shot on goal until more than 10 minutes into the
first period. ... A fan yelled critical comments about Sinden
during the national anthem, drawing cheers from the rest of the
crowd. ... The Capitals also faced Keenan in his first game as an
NHL head coach, on Oct. 11, 1984 at Philadelphia. The teams tied
2-2. ... Mike Knuble played the second two periods with jersey No.
29. His only jersey with his proper number, 26, got blood on it.
... Billington started in place of Olaf Kolzig because he shut out
Bruins last year and had 49 saves against them another time. ...
Allison was denied a hat trick when he was stopped on a breakaway
in the final two minutes.
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ALSO SEE
NHL Scoreboard
Washington Clubhouse
Boston Clubhouse
RECAPS
Boston 4
Washington 1
Philadelphia 3
NY Rangers 0
St. Louis 4
Calgary 3
Colorado 2
Chicago 0
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Jonathan Girard fires a shot past Craig Billington.
avi: 695 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
 Mike Keenan knows about the importance of having good centers.
wav: 160 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
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