Nick Suzuki had a goal and an assist, and Cole Caufield scored in his fourth straight game for the Canadiens (4-6-1). Lane Hutson had two assists, and Cayden Primeau made 28 saves.
"We're going through some things right now, and the frustrating thing is it's repeating mistakes by all of us,” Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher said. “As individuals, I think we need to be more accountable toward the team. Once again, we're sitting here disappointed. We lost a game we felt like we handed it to them.”
Connor McMichael gave the Capitals a 4-3 lead at 4:21 of the third period when he tucked in the rebound of van Riemsdyk’s point shot.
Protas made it 5-3 just 36 seconds later. He received a cross-ice pass from Ovechkin, drove to the net and scored when his shot deflected in off Canadiens defenseman Jayden Struble’s stick.
"It was the next shift we got scored on [again],” Suzuki said. “That's been a trend lately, and that's got to stop. You can't give up two goals back-to-back like that."
Ovechkin pushed it to 6-3 at 12:27 when he scored from the left post off a pass from Protas.
“In between the second and third, we had a very blunt conversation about what needed to change for us to get two points because it wasn’t very clean tonight,” Captials coach Spencer Carbery said. “But the third period, right from the first shift, I knew. Our guys were like ‘okay, we’re going to find a way to win his game and we’re going to lock it down and we’re going to get back to our style of play.”