The Washington Capitals entered Saturday night’s action looking for their first win of the young season. Would the Montreal Canadiens on the back half of a back-to-back give it to them?
Nick Suzuki got on the board first with a wraparound try that slipped under Darcy Kuemper. The Caps would respond with three straight of their own via a Conor Sheary tap-in, Anthony Mantha hard wrister, and TJ Oshie netfront scramble.
Capitals beat Canadiens 3-1!
- The Capitals had another pretty weak first five minutes of a game which is bad but everything else after that in the first period was pretty great. They really settled into the game and were unlucky to not come away with a lead. Gotta make sure that we have no one that is .000001 seconds early in the zone these days. Dumb.
- I am annoyed that Aliaksei Protas got the demotion to the third (actual fourth) line. He was the Cap with the most life in the first two games and got rewarded by being placed on the line that will typically play the least at five-on-five each game. You kept Protas and McMichael on the roster over two players who were not waiver eligible that you then lost. Play them.
- The Hershey Bears had their Home Opener start at the same time as this one. Hendrix Lapierre grabbed his first AHL point on the Bears’ first goal of the season from Henrik Borgstrom.
🚨BORGSTROM!🚨
Our first goal of the season makes it 1-0 with 11:18 left in the first!
🍎Lapierre
🍏Morelli pic.twitter.com/6FUiAaHMEx— Hershey Bears (@TheHersheyBears) October 15, 2022
- The first eight minutes or so of the second period felt so lifeless but they eventually got it together and forced the young Habs into a bunch of mistakes. The team defense was good and limited Montreal’s offensive zone time really well. Forwards were actually backchecking and helping out their defensemen for what felt like the first time this season.
- We saw our first power-play goal of the season from TJ Oshie. They moved the puck well and Marcus Johansson did his normal zone entry magic. They then had a second chance right after the successful first that was like watching toddlers try to skate and pass the puck but we’ll just applaud the good one for now.
- Anthony Mantha already has his second marker of the season. The Caps desperately need him to pot over 30 goals this season. I think him playing with Evgeny Kuznetsov is a much more natural fit than Dylan Strome.
- Oh, hey, the Capitals made a free-agent signing in the middle of the game. Sonny Milano has been brought in on a one-year, one-way deal. He’ll need to clear waivers to start the season in Hershey as that seems to be the plan. Milano was an analytics darling this offseason after scoring 14 goals with the Anaheim Ducks and not being able to find any takers.
They can keep the offside challenge if they go back and review every single one of Wayne Gretzky's goals for the same thing.
— RMNB (@rmnb) October 15, 2022
- Little too much turtle action in the third for me. They wanted to make sure they secured the win but it’s almost always better to not take your foot off the gas. I only add the “almost” qualifier because I guess it makes some sense at the very end of games.
- I didn’t love the goal Darcy Kuemper gave up but he settled in really well outside of it pretty similar to his first start. He was especially good on Montreal’s third-period power play and secured his first win with the Caps.
- Dmitry Orlov threw two really solid hits in the game. Could he have potentially have the most underrated hit highleet reel in the league?
Dapper dudes out here to hopefully call a Capitals win #joebsuitofthenight @JoeBpXp @Laughlin18 pic.twitter.com/kzRLfVQxYf
— RMNB (@rmnb) October 15, 2022
Next up for the Caps is a date with the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night. Bruce Boudreau will be in town behind that Canucks bench.
Headline photo via @73Galaxie500/Twitter
