Capitals at Canadiens preview

CAPITALS (9-7-3) at CANADIENS (11-6-3)
7:30 p.m. ET; TSN2, RDS, NBCSWA, NHL.TV

Domi has 13 points (five goals, eight assists) during the run. He can become the first Canadiens player with points in 10 straight since Vincent Damphousse (12 points; five goals, seven assists) from Feb. 7-28, 1996. The forward is the eighth player since 1943-44 to score at least nine goals through his first 15 games with Montreal.
Goalie Pheonix Copley will make his fourth straight start for the Capitals, who are 2-3-0 in their past five games.
Washington forwards Evgeny Kuznetsov and T.J. Oshie won't play for a second straight game. Each are day to day with upper-body injuries.

Players to watch

Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom has nine points (three goals, six assists) in his past eight games.
Canadiens forward Jonathan Drouin has seven points (three goals, four assists) during a five-game point streak.

They said it

"Obviously we lost key guys and different guys are stepping up, big time. We've got more minutes to play and I think we've got a big step to where we were last year." -- Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin
"The goal was to get off to a good start. We did that, and now it becomes a grind. The consistency within the game has to be there." -- Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher

Capitals projected lineup

Alex Ovechkin -- Lars Eller -- Tom Wilson
Jakub Vrana -- Nicklas Backstrom -- Andre Burakovsky
Chandler Stephenson -- Travis Boyd -- Devante Smith-Pelly
Dmitrij Jaskin -- Nic Dowd -- Brett Connolly
Dmitry Orlov -- John Carlson
Michal Kempny -- Matt Niskanen
Christian Djoos -- Madison Bowey
Pheonix Copley
Braden Holtby
Scratched:Jonas Siegenthaler
Injured:Evgeny Kuznetsov (upper body), Brooks Orpik (lower body), T.J. Oshie (upper body)

Canadiens projected lineup

Tomas Tatar -- Phillip Danault -- Brendan Gallagher
Jonathan Drouin -- Max Domi -- Andrew Shaw
Kenny Agostino -- Jesperi Kotkaniemi -- Artturi Lehkonen
Nicolas Deslauriers -- Matthew Peca -- Charles Hudon
Jordie Benn -- Jeff Petry
David Schlemko -- Noah Juulsen
Mike Reilly -- Victor Mete
Carey Price
Antti Niemi
Scratched:Karl Alzner, Xavier Ouellet
Injured:Shea Weber (knee), Joel Armia (lower body), Paul Byron (lower body), Nikita Scherbak (lower body)

Status report

Holtby will back up Copley and is likely to start Wednesday. … Goalie Ilya Samsonov was assigned to Hershey of the American Hockey League. … Weber took part in the morning skate, though Canadiens coach Claude Julien ruled out any possibility of him returning as early as this week. "With the seriousness of his injury and his surgery, it's important that we don't precipitate his return and take a big step back," Julien said.

Stat pack

Ovechkin needs one power-play goal tie Mario Lemieux (236) for seventh place on the NHL all-time list, and two to tie Brendan Shanahan (237) for sixth. … Stephenson will play his 100th NHL game. … Tatar has six goals in his past six games.