Photo: X/@Capitals
The Washington Capitals had their gutsiest performance of the season against the Montreal Canadiens. After trailing 2-0 with about 10 minutes to go in regulation, Dylan Strome scored twice to knot things up. However, Cole Caufield ended matters 40 seconds into overtime. Here is how it went down.
PERIOD 1
Right out of the gate, the Caps came out with a physical presence and were setting the tone. Montreal almost took an early lead after Michael Pezzetta hit the post.
The Capitals got the game’s first power play after Alex Newhook was called for a hold on Tom Wilson. After failing to convert, the Caps had another crack at the man-advantage and had a lot of chances. Alex Ovechkin had an opportunity in a net mouth scramble and also one in his office.
#ALLCAPS Ovechkin with a good chance on the powerplay pic.twitter.com/Skz8znmtAf
— Capitals Replays (@capsreplays) October 21, 2023
The best chance of the period for the Capitals came with just under two minutes to play. The Habs had an offensive zone turnover and Ovechkin and Anthony Mantha had an odd-man rush. Ovechkin fed a perfect saucer pass to Mantha, but Allen shut the door, keeping it a scoreless game.
However, the Capitals momentum came to a halt when Ovechkin took an ill-advised interference penalty. Just 33 seconds into the man-advantage, Sean Monahan redirected a Nick Suzuki centering pass, giving the Canadiens a 1-0 lead with 1:05 to go in the first stanza.
Cha-ching 💸#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/gJBjbISPKp
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) October 21, 2023
The Caps ended the period outshooting the Habs 12-6.
PERIOD 2
The Caps once again were slow to start the second period. Darcy Kuemper though stayed sharp.
Washington got its third power play of the evening with hopes to tie the game. It had a lot of quality looks, and Ovechkin once again could have had a goal, but it could not capitalize.
As the Caps continued to try and muster any form of offense, the Canadiens extended their lead on the counter attack. Brendan Gallagher went wide on Hardy Häman Aktell, who was making his NHL debut, and stuffed the puck past Kuemper giving the Habs a 2-0 lead.
La rondelle est rentrée… et Gally aussi lol
Gally… Gally-ing#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/RDznj9xM5c
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) October 22, 2023
The Capitals had lots of pressure towards the end of the second period, including their fourth power play of the game. They had 1:06 left of power play time heading into the final stanza.
PERIOD 3
The third period was a penalty parade.
But before that began, Josh Anderson had a chance to extend the lead on a breakaway, but Kuemper denied him with the left pad. Montreal was put back on the man-advantage for the second time in the game, but this time came up empty.
Shortly after the penalty expired, Sonny Milano had a glorious opportunity to get the Caps on the board, but he hit the crossbar. He eventually took a goalie interference penalty. Washington took two more infractions that sent the Caps two players down.
Evgeny Kuznetsov for high-sticking and Wilson for tripping. The penalty kill came up large and it eventually gave the Caps life.
Strome put Washington on the board on a one-time shot off of an Ovechkin pass with 8:37 to go in the third. Matthew Phillips had the secondary assist on the goal.
#ALLCAPS 1-2. OVI TO STROME. FINALLYYY pic.twitter.com/4tXnUzKl4m
— Capitals Replays (@capsreplays) October 22, 2023
Milano took his second penalty of the game putting the Caps short-handed for the fifth time in the third period alone, but the Caps PK unit kept the deficit to one.
With Kuemper headed to the bench for the extra attacker, Kuznetsov took the puck behind the net and fed it across to Strome for his second goal of the game, tying things at two and forcing overtime for the second time this season.
We were down 2-0 then Stromer happened pic.twitter.com/wuLfxzbh65
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 22, 2023
Overtime
Caufield caught the Capitals in a line change and ripped a snapshot past Kuemper, giving the Habs a 3-2 win.
COLEEEE CAUFIELDDDD 🌽#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/qTzPOOiRyg
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) October 22, 2023
UP NEXT
The Capitals return home for a Tuesday matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
By Jacob Cheris
Glad the Caps had spirit and could come back and win a point. Not happy they could not get any PP goals against Montreal’s bad PK crew. Then again, the Caps have no offense these days.
Before Strome’s first goal, one of my friends predicted that Strome would be the Caps’ leading goal scorer — with 19. Another friend predicted they would tie up tonight’s game and lose in OT. (Did not pick Strome to score either of our goals but Phillips and someone else.)
Sounds like you’re in good company! But I hope that first friend turns out wrong. Leading scorer with 19 – yeesh! Hope we end up better than that!
Well, that was better… but of course the Habs are worse than the Sens… and the Caps are still worse than either.
Plenty of opportunities. Just. Can’t. Finish.
Except for Strome. Everybody else? Not so much.
Agree, a slight upward trend appears to be occurring, regardless of scoreboard. Caps outplayed Habs in most key metrics.
Would be great to see the advanced stats for the second and third!
Fair request, let me go get them.
My main takeaway from the first 4 games? We can’t go down by more than 2. If we do, we fall apart and disintegrate. If we don’t, we just may come back, and then it’s whoever’s game in OT or SO.
Overall, a much better effort. Some pretty tough games coming up – have to play tighter still. We can’t outrun or outpass the opponents, especially the first two. And we gotta be more disciplined! Even though some penalties taken tonight were Qble.
Corsi (all shot attempts) at 5v5. – even strength
Thanks!
I’ve said for a while….put this team in New Jersey’s 1-3-1 neutral zone trap from the 90’s and they would thrive. They are too old and slow to play an uptempo style anymore.
This was a much, much better effort. So I’m guessing no “Eraty” tonight?
Dave, I’m still calling it the Manthony award and he is going to get it until he does something positive on the ice. Although we played better in spurts and lead in SOGs, how many of those shots were in the mid section of their goalie? For a while I thought the Habs had the GEICO Walrus in net. Our PP right now is so predictable. I think Carbs has to make some changes in personnel and scheme to get some productivity out of the PP.
Jon, in the second I don’t think it was Gallagher who went wide on Hardy. I think someone else got wide on Hardy, maybe Monahan, and feed Gallagher for the goal.
You are right about the goal and of course it was Kuzy getting out hustled by Gallagher.
This 💩 is getting OLD!!! Real fast! 3-4 games in or not! 0 for 13 or something on PP, and offense can’t even crack 3 goals anymore. OVI isn’t getting on the goal sheet. Outside of a couple assists.
Nobody is trying to watch a giant pile of 💩 for 82 games. If they ate going to Suck it needs to be entertaining and OVI scoring 45-50 goals. Losing 5-4 nightly. Not having a hard time to get 2 goals. Whatever Carbery is doing ain’t working so far. Bring up Miroschnichenko and inject more offense in the top 6. Another line driver& put him opposite OVI
Well sit back and enjoy many cold beers as you are more likely to see games like this for the next several years than the games of old! Sad but I think that Ovie scoring is nice but what good is it to have him score and still lose; unless you are like Ted and what is important to you is a personal goal not team goals! To be honest the team is in this condition because the owner refused to buy out Mantha and Backy in June, still believes that they are contenders for the playoffs and Cup and caters to one player. I would rather watch a rebuilding team than this over paid, over age bunch of has-beens and some never-will-bes! Hopefully the GM will not do his usual later this season and trade picks or young players for older high contract players. Also the signing of the two guys on LTIR was just ridiculous as those slots should have gone to younger players. You can not keep signing older players to try to eek out one more playoff run when your core players could not do it last year. I just hope that because of this team that a young vibrant coach is not lost.
I’m paying for entertainment. I can enjoy a sad movie if it is entertaining. I can enjoy watching an ECHL, AHL, or NHL team even if they do not win their cup as long as they are entertaining. Watching Ovi set an all time goal scoring record is entertaining. Watching this team right now is not. But they do not have to win the Cup to make it so.