Northern Line – A night after vanquishing the Edmonton Oilers at home in Washington, the Caps are taking a quick pause from a home heavy back half of November. They’ve made the journey to Montreal where they’ll face the Canadiens tonight in a battle of pair of first-round Stanley Cup playoff combatants from last spring.
Thursday’s game finishes up a set of back-to-backs for the Capitals, who are 4-1-0 in the front end of back-to-backs after their win over Edmonton. Tonight, they’ll be seeking to improve upon their 1-2-1 record in the back end of back-to-backs, as well as their 1-4-1 mark against Atlantic Division opponents this season.
Midway through tonight’s game in Montreal, the Caps will be a quarter of the way through their 82-game regular season slate.
Tonight marks the first of the three meetings between the long ago Norris Division rivals (look it up), and the first of two up north of the border.
Fulfillment Center – With both P-L Dubois and Nic Dowd now absent from the Washington lineup, the Caps have had to do some shuffling of their forward group this month. Dubois last played against the Islanders on Halloween night, and Dowd has missed just the Edmonton game and tonight’s tilt with the Canadiens so far.
In Wednesday’s win over the Oilers, Dylan Strome led the Caps quartet of centers with 17:15 in ice time, Connor McMichael skated 16:52, Justin Sourdif logged 15:33 and Hendrix Lapierre skated 8:42.
With 536 career games under his belt entering tonight’s game, Strome has more experience than Washington’s other three centers combined; McMichael (257), Lapierre (103) and Sourdif (24) have 384 games worth of experience in the NHL as they enter tonight’s game.
Last night in Washington, that quartet of middlemen played well enough to help the Caps past the Oilers. But tonight, the Caps are skating for the second time in as many nights, and they are doing so against a rested opponent that they knocked out of the playoffs last spring. A week and a half ago in Raleigh, we witnessed how amped up the Caps were able to get against the team that ousted them from the postseason last May; they handed the Hurricanes a 4-1 setback.
More to the point, Carbery won’t be able to control the matchups for tonight’s game. Last season, Montreal’s top forward line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky logged just over 700 minutes together, one of only three trios in the NHL to spend that much time together over the full 82-game slate.
Recently, Slafkovsky was moved to a line with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov, while Zach Bolduc has joined Caufield and Suzuki on the top line. Those six forwards have combined for 38 of the 63 goals (60 percent) Montreal has scored this season.
“We're very familiar with them from playing them,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “I think we played them eight times last year, including the playoffs, so we know them really well from a personnel standpoint. [They’ve made] a little bit of a few subtle changes from last year we noticed, structurally in a few different areas. But a very dangerous rush team, offensive zone possession, the ability to break you down in 1-on-1 situations, cut back, hold onto pucks and then find openings inside of those.
“And then they've got some game breakers with [defenseman Lane] Hutson and Suzuki. He's such a big part of their team, and he drives so much play at 5-on-5. And then they've got the few of the young kids that look like they're continuing to come along with Caulfield, and even Demidov and those guys.”
Some players go through their entire career without getting an extended opportunity to shine at the NHL level. We don’t know the extent of Dowd’s injury, but we are unlikely to see Dubois back in the lineup before February. The opportunity is there for McMichael, Sourdif and Lapierre to prove that they deserve to play center in the National Hockey League, and the rest is up to them.
“Injuries are part of this league and for any team,” says Carbery. “And so for us, they're two key players because they play such important roles inside of our forward group. But we'll ask other guys to do a little bit more and then share some of that responsibility, whether it's matchup stuff with Sourdif, and Stromer and [Alex Ovechkin] taking on a little bit of some of those matchups.
“And it's good opportunity. [Lapierre] is going to play a little bit more; there's someone that, has been playing eight, nine minutes, seven minutes some nights, and now probably going to get an opportunity, depending on how the game flow works out, to play a little bit more. So, there's a great opportunity for Hendrix Lapierre to – with an injury – take advantage of some of that opportunity.”
Number Nine – Ever since he was drafted eighth overall in the 2023 NHL Draft, Caps fans and brass have had their eyes on the progress of Ryan Leonard, the youngest member of the team; he turns 21 in January. Following his sophomore season at Boston College last season, Leonard inked a pro contract and joined the Caps, making his NHL debut last April 1 in Boston.
He netted his first NHL goal into an empty net against Chicago later that week, and he played well over the final two weeks of the regular season and into the playoffs. This season, with the benefit of a full training camp plus that taste of the NHL from last season, Leonard is gradually beginning to attract attention with the quality of his all-around game.
With a pair of dazzling individual effort goals last night against the Oilers, he recorded the first multi-goal game of his NHL career, becoming the first Capital to do so at the age of 20 or younger since Andre Burakovsky on Jan. 27, 2016. Missing key players in their lineup against Edmonton, the Caps needed someone to step up and Leonard was one of several who did so.
“It’s great to see, because you see little incremental improvements in his game,” says Carbery. “As a coach, when you’re walking him through those things and trying to help him ingrain those habits into his game, you would ideally like to see him get rewarded offensively. Because it’s no secret; players like him, they want to score and they want to fill up the stat sheet.
“So, you want that as a coach for them too, but you have to understand that they have to do things a certain way without the puck and with the puck at certain times of the game. Anytime that a player's working really, really hard at the other things – the other parts of his game – and now he's rewarded offensively, it’s great to see, and that just only builds confidence for him inside of his game. And yeah, I just think it's just going to continue to grow with him as he gains more experience in the League and just continues to work at his game like he's continued to do thus far this season.”
In The Nets – Logan Thompson made 26 saves on Wednesday in Washington, helping the Caps earn a 7-4 win over the Edmonton Oilers. Two nights earlier, Charlie Lindgren turned in a sparkling 30-save performance in a vastly different kind of game, a 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings. Lindgren’s win came in his first start in 11 days; he’ll be back in the nets tonight for the Caps.
Both goaltenders refused to give up a lead-changing goal in those two home games earlier in the week, enabling the scuffling Caps to string together consecutive wins for the first time since Oct. 21-24.
Lindgren is the starter for tonight’s game; he got his professional start with the Canadiens, who signed him as an undrafted free agent just under 10 years ago, following his junior season at St. Cloud St.
Lifetime against the Habs, Lindgren is 3-1-0 in five appearances – all starts – with a 2.51 GAA and an .899 save pct.
For the Canadiens, Samuel Montembeault is the slated starter tonight. On the season, he is 4-5-1 in 11 appearances with a 3.56 GAA and an .858 save pct. Lifetime against the Capitals, Montembeault is 2-3-0 in six appearances – five starts – with a 3.49 GAA and an .893 save pct.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Capitals and the Canadiens might look on Thursday night at Bell Centre:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
72-Beauvillier, 17-Strome, 8-Ovechkin
21-Protas, 34-Sourdif, 43-Wilson
22-Duhaime, 24-McMichael, 9-Leonard
15-Milano, 29-Lapierre, 53-Frank
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
6-Chychrun, 3-Roy
38-Sandin, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
48-Thompson
Healthy Extras
15-Milano
47-Chisholm
52-McIlrath
Injured/Out
26-Dowd (upper body)
80-Dubois (lower body)
MONTREAL
Forwards
13-Caufield, 14-Suzuki, 76-Bolduc
20-Slafkovsky, 91-Kapanen, 93-Demidov
89-Roy, 71-Evans, 17-Anderson
49-Davidson, 90-Veleno, 11-Gallagher
Defensemen
8-Matheson, 53-Dobson
47-Struble, 48-Hutson
72-Xhekaj, 45-Carrier
Goalies
35-Montembeault
75-Dobes
Healthy Extras
None
Injured/Out
15-Newhook (ankle)
21-Guhle (lower body)
77-Dach (foot)
92-Laine (lower body)
