For the first time in five years, the Capitals are carrying a five-game home winning streak. The Caps doubled up the Montreal Canadiens by a 6-3 count on Halloween night at Capital One Arena to forge their longest home ice winning streak since a five-game run from Oct. 16-Nov. 9, 2019.
Thursday’s win wasn’t the prettiest of the seven the Caps (7-2-0) notched in October. The first period was quiet and scoreless. The second was a high-event period on both sides, and it tended to be sloppy, as October NHL hockey often is. Washington’s passing wasn’t as crisp as it has been for most of the month, and its decision making wasn’t particularly sharp over the first 40 minutes of play.
In the third, the Caps turned on the jets and broke open and dominated what was a 3-3 contest heading into the final 20 minutes.
When it was all said and done, the Caps’ six-pack of offense came from six different sticks. Most notable among the goals were Alex Ovechkin’s 858th career tally – his third in two games – which leaves him 37 goals shy of Wayne Gretzky (894) for the top spot on the NHL’s all-time goal scoring ledger. Ovechkin’s third-period goal came against Montreal netminder Cayden Primeau, the 176th different goaltending victim he has scored against. Only Jaromir Jagr (178) and Patrick Marleau (177) have more.
Tom Wilson scored Washington’s first goal on the power play early in the second period, ending an 0-for-22 extra-man drought. With an assist on Connor McMichael’s third-period goal and a late third-period scrap with Montreal’s Josh Anderson, Wilson finally notched the first Gordie Howe hat trick of his NHL career on Thursday.
“I liked our third period a lot,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “We were just making some decisions and reads that were pretty uncharacteristic in our group through the first three weeks of the season.
“In between the second and the third, we had a very just blunt conversation about what needed to change for us to get two points, because it just wasn’t very clean tonight.”
Following a muted first frame in which both teams had a single power play opportunity, the middle frame featured more high-event hockey. Each team struck for a trio of tallies in the second period, both sides notched their first goal of the game on the power play, and both teams scored twice in as many shots in less than a minute.
Washington killed off a minor to start the second, then it halted its power play dry spell Wilson redirected an Ovechkin wrist shot past Primeau at 3:21.
The Caps killed off three straight Montreal power plays to start the game, but Washington was guilty of an egregious too many men on the ice penalty just seconds after completing the third of those kills, and the Habs made them pay the fourth time.
Just ahead of the midpoint of the middle period, Cole Caufield scored off the rush on the power play, beating Charlie Lindgren to the far side on a shot from the right circle, squaring the score at 1-1 at 9:52.
A mere 39 seconds later, the Canadiens jumped in front when Brendan Gallagher tipped home a Lane Hutson shot from between the tops of the circles. The Gallagher goal gave the Habs a brief 2-1 lead at 10:31.
Washington evened the score on Brandon Duhaime’s first goal as a Capital at 11:45. Duhaime won the puck high in Montreal ice along the right wing wall. He then curled toward the middle and put a high shot toward the net through some traffic. The seeing eye shot found twine to even the game once again.
Less than a minute later, the Caps regained the lead on a forechecking goal. Mike Sgarbossa won a puck battle behind the Montreal cage, and when the puck squirted to the front, Jakub Vrana buried it for a 3-2 Washington advantage at 12:39.
But the Caps couldn’t carry that lead into the third; Canadiens’ captain Nick Suzuki tied the game for a third time, beating Lindgren on the short side from the left circle with exactly two minutes left in the second.
From the first shift of the third, it was evident the Caps meant business. They outshot the Habs 14-4 in the third, scored all three goals of the final period, and recorded their second three-goal period of the game and – remarkably – their seventh of the season.
Last season, the Capitals didn’t record their seventh period of three or more goals until the 25th game of the season, a Dec. 10, 2023 contest in Chicago.
McMichael scored what would prove to be the game-winning goal at 4:21 of the third. Trevor van Riemsdyk blunted a Montreal rush in neutral ice, sending the Caps into Habs territory in transition. When van Riemsdyk issued a right point drive, McMichael tucked the rebound in to give the Caps a lead they would not relinquish.
Thirty-six seconds later, the Caps had their second pair of goals in under a minute; Aliaksei Protas – who had a pretty shorthanded goal overturned because he was offside in the second – stopped the Habs’ push at the Washington line, sending the Caps off in transition again. At the right post, Protas potted an Ovechkin feed to make it 5-3 at 4:57.
It marked the first time the Caps struck for two goals within a minute twice in the same game since Dec. 31, 2022, in a 9-2 victory over Montreal at Capital One Arena.
Less than eight minutes later, Protas returned the favor, feeding the Caps’ captain for an empty net look from a deep angle at 12:27.
“The third period, obviously, when we had our first shift right away, it set the tone,” says Ovechkin. The kind of play, our style of game, controlling the puck, playing physical.”
For the second time in as many games, the Caps teed up more than 80 shot attempts. And for the second time in as many games – and third in the last five – they limited the opposition to fewer than 20 shots on net.
That was no small feat on Thursday, given that Montreal had six power play opportunities in the game – including a 95-second stretch with a two-man advantage – yet it managed only three shots on Lindgren in 10 minutes and 8 seconds of power play time.
Martin Fehervary (8:13), John Carlson (7:50) and Nic Dowd (7:02) ate up the lion’s share of that shorthanded ice time for Washington. Washington combined to block 22 shots on the night – six more than the Habs put on Lindgren – with Rasmus Sandin leading the way with six, matching his single-game career best.
Montreal has been outscored by a combined 17-8 in the third period of its 11 games to date this season.
“Our start showed that we were patient, and we were disciplined,” says Montreal coach Martin St. Louis. “We were in a good spot going into the third. And then you just throw up all over yourself.”
Washington’s seven October victories are its most since 2019, when it went 9-2-3 in the season’s first month.
“I think we're a real solid team right now,” says Wilson. “I think guys are excited for the guy next to them. They're pulling for the guy next to them, and it's fun when they're going in, and just coming together as a really solid team. It can be anybody on any given night, and it seems like it's clicking well. Obviously, it’s an early sample size, but it's a really fun room, and guys are having fun out there, playing hockey.”
