Keenan Wins Boston Debut

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 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.

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."

Imay 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.

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