WASHINGTON – Based on six games of evidence, there are going to be two cities’ worth of hockey fans without fingernails come Wednesday night. 

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Bruins-Capitals Eastern Conference quarterfinals series is the first playoff series in NHL history in which the first six games were decided by one goal. 

There have been three overtime games, and two decided in the final two minutes of regulation. By this series’ standards, you’d have to consider the Capitals’ 2-1 win in Game 4 -- which was a one-goal game from 18:43 of the second period until the final horn -- a blowout. 

So, with the Bruins forcing a Game 7 on Tyler Seguin’s overtime heroics in Game 6 on Sunday, you should expect nothing different from a close, intense affair Wednesday at the Garden. 

“It’s been the type of series that’s been so close that it deserves a Game 7,” Andrew Ference, who scored one of the Bruins’ four goals on the day, said after Game 6. “It’s kind of fitting that either team has not given the other team too much in the way of leads, or being able to hold on to leads. It’s been a good hockey series, and a Game 7 is well-deserved on both sides.” 

As has been well-documented, the Bruins played in three Game 7s during their 2011 Stanley Cup run. Though the first-round series against the Habs had to be decided by a Nathan Horton overtime goal to send the B’s to the second round, there was no closer and tighter game Boston played in the entire 2011 postseason than Game 7 of the conference finals. 

That game also was decided by a Horton goal, and it was the only tally of the game. The play, started by Ference, was a perfect circumvention of Guy Boucher’s stingy 1-3-1 neutral zone trap. For the rest of the game, however, the teams played scoreless hockey in what Ference would later call a “clinic.” Even before Horton finally tipped the puck past Dwayne Roloson 12:27 into the third period, the game seemed destined to be an instant classic.  

Maybe this is simply getting hockey fans’ hopes up, but are all the pieces there for the two teams to play a Game 7 reminiscent of the best game of the entire 2011 postseason? 

The Capitals don’t play the 1-3-1, but they do, like the Bruins, play the super-defensive, super-boring 1-4 neutral zone trap. Just like last year with Tampa, it’s a meeting of two teams that live and die by the trap, but unlike that series, this one has been tight the whole way. Only three times this series has a team scored more than three goals (the number has been four in each case). Last year, the Bruins-Lightning series featured a team scoring five or more goals five times. 

“It's hard to predict what kind of game it's going to be, but so far, through the first six, it's been really well-played by both teams system-wise,” Ference said of this year’s series with the Capitals. “The mistakes have been very minimal. There's not a ton of breakdowns or really glaring errors. That's why the scores are low. The goalies are playing great, and it's tight. Nobody's really giving each other the glaring mistakes to lose momentum or give away the easy goals. All the goals have been pretty hard-earned.”

While Tim Thomas has yet to completely look like he did in the 2011 postseason, he actually has allowed as many goals so far (14) as he did in the first round of the playoffs against the Canadiens last season. On Sunday, however, perhaps he gave a little indication that this series could be decided in similar fashion to last year’s meeting with the Lightning. 

In the second period, with the Capitals applying tons of pressure (they outshot the B’s 15-5), Thomas had to dive across the net and extend his stick to prevent Marcus Johansson from burying what looked like an easy goal. Replays showed that Johansson had just enough space to stuff it in, but Thomas’ stick saved the day. 

The save was reminiscent of “The Save,” Thomas’ most notable 2011 postseason save that came against Steve Downie in Game 5 against the Lightning.

“Opposite side, though,” Thomas, a perfectionist and stickler for details, said with a straight face when asked about comparisons after the game. 

Thomas had a shutout in Game 7 against the Lightning, a contest in which he made 24 saves. Much like when he faced Dwayne Roloson in the game that sent the B’s to the Cup finals, Thomas figures to be in a goaltending duel with a goalie feeling pretty good about himself this series in Braden Holtby. The third-stringer has matched Thomas -- they’ve both allowed 14 goals this series -- pretty well as he plays in his first playoff series after being thrown into the fire due to injuries to Washington’s top two goalies. 

The Bruins and Capitals have played each other close enough that it would only seem fitting that this series would not only have a seventh game but a neck-and-neck seventh game that people won’t be forgetting any time soon. 

“It’s difficult, but I don’t think it’s going to be hard,” Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin said Sunday. “It’s going to be a 50-50 game, 50-50 chances.”