Friday night’s Game 3 of the first-round playoff series between the Caps and Canadiens at Montreal’s Bell Centre was a wild one, to put it mildly. The two teams combined for as many goals as they combined to score in the first two games combined, with the Habs doubling up the Caps on the scoreboard by a 6-3 count, cutting Washington’s 2-0 series lead in half in the process.
Both Montreal and Washington had to make goaltending changes because of an injury to their starter; the Canadiens’ Sam Montembeault departed midway through the second period, yielding to Jakub Dobes. And Washington’s Logan Thompson left following a collision with teammate Dylan Strome a couple minutes after the midpoint of the third period.
In bygone eras of the NHL’s history, the bench-clearing brawl was a reasonably common occurrence. When the second period of Friday’s game came to an end, the packed house at Bell Centre witnessed the opposite of a bench-clearing brawl when Washington’s Tom Wilson and Montreal’s Josh Anderson tangled on the Capitals’ bench while the team’s coaching staff looked on.
As for the game itself, the Caps got their defense involved in the offense for the first time in the series, and they also issued a couple of quick responses to Montreal goals; the second of those responses tied the game at 3-3 early in the third. But the Caps were also far too casual with their puck management, and their largesse largely fueled the Montreal attack.
Washington also had no answer for Montreal’s top forward trio of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky. That line was dominant all night long; each of the three scored, and the trio combined for 19 of Montreal’s 40 shots on goal in the game. Caufield led the way with 11; he had one attempt blocked and no misses on the night.
“The end of the second period, we put ourselves in a good spot,” says Suzuki. “It was kind of emotional; a lot of physicality there. We came into the room and just kind of reset. We gave up that early one in the third, but we stuck with it – didn’t get too high or too low – and just maintained the same pressure that we brought the first two periods, and we were able to capitalize.
“We really needed that win and put the momentum on our side.”
Puck mismanagement on the part of the Capitals led directly to four of Montreal’s first five goals of the game, and if that weren’t bad enough on its own accord, two of those four goals came with less than a minute remaining in the period, the first and the second frames.
“I think it’s a combination of a lot of things,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “We weren’t very good with the puck, so I think it’s firmness, I think it’s a little bit of nerves, a little bit of poise in that environment.
“Whether you’re on the wall, whether you’re through the neutral zone or the offensive zone, we coughed up a lot of pucks in a lot of different areas. And then a couple of them, you’ve got to be stronger in that situation. You’ve got to find a way to get under someone’s stick and advance the puck.”
Even though the Caps scored first and did so early in the opening frame, there is no taking the crowd out of the contest at Bell Centre in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Washington gained the zone on the rush, and Connor McMichael went cross ice to Rasmus Sandin at the right point. Sandin put a drive on net – the Caps’ first shot of the contest. Montembeault made the stop, but kicked the rebound to Matt Roy, who hit McMichael on the tape for a back door tap-in and a 1-0 Washington lead at 3:20.
Both sides executed successful penalty kills in the middle of the first, but the Caps’ lack of firmness with the puck first bit them in the final minute of the frame. When McMichael put a soft feed to the middle of the ice in his own end, Montreal’s Alex Newhook teed up an Alexandre Carrier center point drive through traffic that beat Thompson, tying the game at 1-1 with 52.8 seconds left.
“I thought we did a lot of uncharacteristic things with the puck,” says McMichael. “I don’t know what the reasoning was behind that – and myself included – but like I said, we’ll be better for it, and we’ll turn it on next game.”
Before the midpoint of the second, the Habs took the lead three seconds into a power play. Washington won the face-off in its end, but John Carlson lost the handle, and Suzuki quickly buried a backhander to put his team on top for the first time, 2-1 at 8:36.
“I can speak for myself,” says Carlson. “I’m just trying to get around the puck and get it out the weak side, and it gets away from me. It doesn’t happen very often, and I think every situation presents itself differently. But personally, I would love that one back.”
The Caps delivered a quick response on a strong offensive zone shift from the Lars Eller line, which finally got rewarded for some of its good puck possession work in this series. Eller and Andrew Mangiapane held onto the puck in the Montreal zone, and the latter found and fed Jakob Chychrun, who cranked a laser of a shot past Montembeault to make it 2-2 at 10:47.
Less than a minute later, Montembeault went down the tunnel under his own power, and Dobes took the crease.
In the final minute of the middle period, the Caps again found themselves scrambling a bit in their own end, this time against the always dangerous Suzuki line, and with Habs rookie sensation Lane Hutson also on the ice at the time.
Again the Caps were too casual with the puck, and again the Habs made them pay. Sandin appeared to be trying to nudge the puck to partner Matt Roy, who was in better position to get it out of the zone. But the soft feed didn’t connect, going straight to Hutson at the right dot. He quickly fed Caufield for a weak side one-timer that didn’t miss, restoring the Canadiens’ cushion at 3-2 with 8.6 seconds left.
After the horn sounded to end the period, players from both teams were loitering around the middle of the ice, and Washington’s Tom Wilson and Montreal’s Josh Anderson eventually engaged, and they soon battled their way into the open bench door with linesman Kyle Flemington right with them, trying to stay between them.
“I was on my way to walk across the ice, because you have to walk across at the Bell Centre,” recounts Carbery. “Then I had to reverse my course and head back, because there were two large individuals coming through the door that I was trying to exit. Just two competitive teams and two competitive guys.”
Few punches were thrown; both players got matching roughing minors – as did Eller and Habs defenseman Arber Xhekaj. Wilson and Anderson each got a 10-minute misconduct as well.
Early in the third, the Caps pulled even again. Trevor van Riemsdyk shut down a play in his own end and headmanned for Anthony Beauvillier in the middle of the ice. Beauvillier went to Strome on his right, and Strome went cross ice to Alex Ovechkin. The captain whacked a one-timer past Dobes to make it a brand-new game again, 3-3 at 2:39 of the third.
But Montreal got that one back less than two minutes later, getting a Christian Dvorak goal at 4:17 to retake the lead.
Thompson made a back door save on Carrier to keep the Caps within one, and the Caps also snuffed out a Montreal power play to give themselves a chance to hang in the contest.
But with less than seven minutes remaining, Taylor Raddysh turned it over at the Montreal line, sparking the Habs in transition. Strome tried in vain to hinder Slafkovsky from behind, but the Habs winger scored anyway, making it 5-3 with 6:37 remaining.
Adding injury to insult, Strome barreled into Thompson, inadvertently cross-checking him into the iron. Thompson was helped off the ice and into the Washington room for treatment, and Charlie Lindgren took over.
Thompson was still being evaluated when Carbery addressed media postgame.
“I haven’t talked to the trainers yet, so I’m not sure,” he said. “So we’ll get an update and go from there.”
The Habs closed out the scoring with a Newhook power-play goal at 17:35.
“Once the puck dropped,” begins Habs coach Martin St. Louis, “it was a game where there was a lot of noise because of the physicality on the ice for sure, and the emotions, especially early on. But I feel as a group and as a coach, I feel like the noise goes away a little bit, especially in the heart of the game.
“And obviously when you pull away and you’re up two with six or seven minutes to go, as much as you’ve got to stay focused, I think you can definitely take a moment and realize the atmosphere that you get to work. Our fans were unbelievable tonight. We needed that juice; they gave us the juice.
“And I felt we fed off that, and we stayed composed and still stayed to the task. But you can’t describe that feeling that we get from our fans. It’s special.”
The Caps will try to restore their lead in the series to two games in Sunday’s Game 4 here at Bell Centre.
“Mistakes are happening; we expect that,” says Carlson. “They were just big, big mistakes today. We gave them too many easy Grade A looks. Like I said, they’re going to happen. But I felt like we battled back through that and did a good job with that, but ultimately, we didn’t get enough good plays going our way tonight.”
