Caps Close out '22 vs. Canadiens
Seeking to rebound from a subpar outing vs. Sens, Caps host Habs in Saturday matinee on New Year's Eve
Two nights after their five-game winning streak was halted with a 4-3 overtime loss at the hands of the Ottawa Senators, the Caps close out the 2022 portion of the 2022-23 schedule when they host the Montreal Canadiens in the middle match of a three-game homestand. The Habs make their second and final visit to the District this season for a Saturday matinee match with the Caps.
Having sandwiched a pair of five-game winning streaks around a 2-1 loss to the Dallas Stars in mid-December, the Caps went into Thursday's game with Ottawa flying high and climbing the Metropolitan Division standings ladder. But even though Washington twice held two-goal leads in the second period, the feeling of lead security from most of the Caps' previous 11 games was never present on Thursday against Ottawa.
The Sens owned all the jump and all the verve and most of the possession in the first frame, and Ottawa poured 16 shots on Caps' goalie Darcy Kuemper in the opening 20 minutes, matching the most allowed by the Caps in any single period since Nov. 15. The Senators then went one better, firing 17 shots on the Washington net in the middle period.
Kuemper was busy throughout the night, facing 45 shots, the most the Caps have yielded in any game this season. The previous high of 44 shots against also came with Kuemper in net, and was also against the Senators, on Oct. 20 in Ottawa, a game in which the Caps also lost hold of a two-goal lead in a 5-2 loss.
Washington struggled to score at 5-on-5 in its first two games against the Sens, but it exploited Ottawa errors for three such goals in the second period from Alex Ovechkin, Dylan Strome and Evgeny Kuznetsov. Unfortunately, the Caps committed errors of their own and Kuemper couldn't paper over all of them.
"He gave us a chance, especially leaving the first period," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of Kuemper. "I thought he made some big saves and then he had to be on point all night, for different reasons."
Kuemper was the reason Washington was able to collect a point from Thursday's game, but credit to the Senators as well, who are a better team than their record would indicate. Ottawa was a handful for Washington in each of the three meetings between the two teams this season, and the Sens are now 6-2-2 in their last 10 games, with wins over Washington and Boston in their last two games.
"They started pretty good on the forecheck and they were putting the puck deep," says Caps center Evgeny Kuznetsov. "They got some shots, but there was not a lot of Grade A chances, so we was in one in the first period, but then we get back and we push hard, and we're able to fight. Unfortunately, at the end of the game a couple of my mistakes cost us the win. Sometimes, that's how it is."
With Montreal here on Saturday afternoon, the key for the Capitals now is to get right back to the way they've been playing for most of the last five weeks, during which they've compiled an impressive 13-3-2 record.
"We'll definitely have to move past that one," says Washington winger Conor Sheary. "I think sometimes when you get in these winning streaks and these winning months, sometimes you approach games thinking it's going to be easy to win, and you forget how hard the work is that you have to put into each game, and the preparation and all that.
"[Thursday] night, just based on the shots alone, you could tell that we didn't really start the way that we wanted to; they kind of controlled the possession and the shot clock. We figured it out a little bit for parts of the game, but overall, it just wasn't a great effort. But it's one that we'll review, but we'll move by pretty quickly."
Montreal was here back on Oct. 15, providing the opposition in Washington's third game of the young season at that point. The Caps skated off with a 3-1 victory in that one, their first win of the season.
The Habs are also-rans in the Atlantic Division standings, bringing up the rear with 33 points. But if the Caps learned anything from Thursday's game against the Sens, they learned that no team in the League can be taken lightly.
Montreal will be playing the sixth of seven consecutive road games on Saturday, and the Habs are hungry for wins. They're coming to D.C. on the heels of a 7-2 spanking at the hands of the Panthers in Florida on Thursday night, and the Canadiens are 1-3-1 thus far on their extended road tour. Montreal's last regulation win came on Dec. 6 in Seattle, and the Habs are 2-7-1 in 10 games since.
