Caps Take on Habs
Caps' road trip continues with a Saturday night visit to Montreal
Two nights after suffering a lopsided loss in Toronto in the opening game of a five-game road trip, the Caps continue their lengthy journey with a Saturday night visit to Montreal where they will face the Canadiens.
Thursday night's 7-3 setback at the hands of the Maple Leafs in Toronto halted Washington's four-game winning streak, its longest of the season. The defeat in the trip opener also ended the Caps' five-game road winning streak.
Toronto jumped out of the starting gate and took it to the Caps from the opening face-off, forging a two-goal lead in the first period and blowing the game open with a four-goal outburst in a span of just over six minutes in the middle of the second period.
"There was a lot of things from tonight, and I'm not going to get into all of them," said Caps coach Peter Laviolette in the wake of the loss to Toronto. "But there's a lot of things that needed to be better. Certainly speed was one of them, but there's a lot more, too. And so we'll take it, and try to get better from it. There's a lot that we can do to be better than we were tonight, and to get back to winning some hockey games."
The Leafs feature one of the NHL's most potent offensive attacks, and the speedy Toronto team got the jump on the Caps early in the game and never looked back. The Leafs took a 1-0 lead before the game was five minutes old, and they never trailed. At the eight-minute mark of the first, Toronto owned a lopsided 13-1 lead in shot attempts at 5-on-5.
"There are so many games," says Caps center Nicklas Backstrom. "I think you've just got to forget about this one, and put it aside and focus on the next one. Every game we're playing right now is a big game, so we've just got to get ready for the next game and make sure we're focused and starting better.
"Against a team like this, first of all you've got to take care of the puck and you can't get caught giving them odd-man rushes, that's what they got all night. And obviously when they get those opportunities, they're good. They're skilled players and they have a lot of speed. That was definitely an area that was disappointing tonight."
Toronto remains the only playoff-bound Eastern Conference team the Caps have not defeated during the 2021-22 regular season, and Washington will have one more chance to put a win in the column over the Leafs between now and the end of the season. The Caps host Toronto at Capital One Arena on April 24, their first game back in the District after the current road trip concludes.
The Caps traveled to Montreal after Thursday's game, and they conducted an optional practice on Friday afternoon ahead of Saturday's contest with the Canadiens. Washington is 13-5-1 since the beginning of March, and the Caps will be seeking to get back on the winning track on Saturday against the Habs, who are hosting the New York Islanders on Friday night at Bell Centre.
Montreal is at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, but the Habs have shocked both the Maple Leafs (on March 26) and the Tampa Bay Lightning (on April 2), and there is no pressure on them, so they can't be taken lightly.
"It's always something," says Laviolette. "[Thursday] night, we were facing a young, fast team that has had a really good year. I think on any given night, you can win a game or lose a game by our own preparation and our own actions out on the ice.
"We're going to look to get better in our own game. We understand that [the Habs] are dangerous. They've got skill, they're dangerous, they're young, they're quick. The pressure thing, I think that does factor into it. You see teams every night that are out of the playoffs knocking off top teams. It goes to my point that anybody beats anybody on any given night, and you've got to be ready to play."
Goaltender Carey Price returned to action for the first time this season in Montreal's Friday night home game against the Islanders. Price had not played since the 2021 Stanley Cup Final series against Tampa Bay last July; he had offseason knee surgery and later voluntarily entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program to address an ongoing substance abuse issue.
Price stopped 17 of 19 shots he faced against the Isles, and he carried a shutout into the third period. But New York scored a pair of quick goals early in the third, and Ilya Sorokin stopped all 44 shots the Canadiens sent in his direction in a 3-0 Islanders win.
The 34-year-old Price won the Vezina, Hart, Jennings and Pearson Trophies in 2014-15 when he won 44 games. Over the course of his 14-season career in the NHL - all with Montreal - Price has forged a 360-257-79 record and has tacked on 43 playoff victories, 13 of which came last spring. He has four seasons remaining on a contract that carries an annual $10.5 million salary cap hit.
