After claiming a 6-3 win against the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night, the Montreal Canadiens were taking on the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night. Alexander Ovechkin and the Caps have had the Habs’ number of late, but without Tom Wilson, Jacob Chychrun, Justin Sourdif and Pierre-Luc Dubois, the locals came out flat, so to speak.
Of course, the Caps still had Alexander Ovechkin, but the Great Eight is not as much of a threat without his proper supporting cast. Even on the power play, the sniper still just stands there waiting for the perfect feed, even though it’s clearly not coming. At times, the fans even booed their once-devastating man advantage. Still, thanks to a fantastic third frame, the Capitals came back from 0-2 to win 3-2 in overtime.
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Brendan Gallagher has made the headlines recently, but not necessarily for the right reasons, as fans and media alike have started questioning whether he’ll remain in the lineup when the injured Habs are ready to return. In this game, however, he scored an important goal, not only because it gave the Canadiens a 2-0 lead, but because it was the 243rd of his career, which means he’s now tied with Mats Naslund for the 14th most goals scored while playing for the storied franchise.
Of course, Gallagher needed 881 matches to reach the milestone while Nastlund only needed 617 games, but still, for a fifth-round pick to have that kind of career with the same franchise is quite a feat. Gallagher has earned everything he has done in his career, nothing was ever given to him.
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If there remained any doubts about whether Samuel Montembeault was fully back, they should have been eclipsed by his performance tonight. Flawless through 40 minutes after having made 17 saves, the Canadiens’ goaltender was put through a real test in the third as we faced 16 shots. While he did allow two goals, they were both nice deflected shots from Ethan Frank, and neither can be held against the Habs’ goaltender.
Montembeault’s puck tracking and rebound control were on point, and he played a calm, collected game despite mounting pressure, especially late in the game. Without his heroics, the Caps wouldn’t have needed the overtime period to seal the deal. Washington added another 10 shots in the extra frame, and the goaltender stood tall as captain Nick Suzuki was stuck in the box, but with 39 seconds left, Connor McMichael called game.
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Since the game was the second part of a back-to-back, the Canadiens elected to give Kaiden Guhle a night off and to bring Jayden Struble back into the lineup. While the decision makes sense from a workload management standpoint for Guhle, it meant that Noah Dobson spent 28:37 on the ice and Mike Matheson 27:54. Meanwhile, Arber Xhekaj only saw 7:03 of action, the fact that he was in the penalty box for so long after getting 17 penalty minutes didn’t help his cause much, and Jayden Struble only played 9:43 after he looked a bit worse for wear following a hit.
In his first game in 13 days, Josh Anderson did well, scoring the Canadiens’ first goal as they were on the penalty kill.
While the Canadiens leave Washington with a point, they could definitely have used two, and sooner rather than later, they may start regretting not having many regulation wins, since it’s the first tiebreaker if points are tied.
Follow Karine on X @KarineHains Bluesky @karinehains.bsky.social and Threads @karinehains.
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