Will the Canadiens ever win three games in a row again?
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The answer to that question has to be yes — but when?
It didn’t happen Saturday night when the Canadiens lost 4-2 to the Washington Capitals.
Montreal was looking to win three games in a row for the first time this season. They only did it once last season, in late March.
It certainly looked like they were on their way to a third straight win Saturday when Alex Newhook and Cole Caufield scored in the first 16 minutes and some fans at the Bell Centre decided it was already time to start singing “Olé! Olé! Olé!”
Pierre Luc Dubois scored for the Capitals only 33 seconds into the second period, but the Canadiens were still looking good with a 2-1 lead heading into the third.
Jayden Struble had a chance to put the Canadiens up 3-1 when was stopped by Capitals goalie Logan Thompson on a breakaway at 1:38 of the third period.
It was a sign of things to come.
Josh Anderson missed on another breakaway at 4:07 before Tom Wilson tied it up for the Capitals at the 7:10 mark.
How about some more breakaways for the Canadiens?
Captain Nick Suzuki missed at the 9:39 mark and then it was Brendan Gallagher’s turn to miss just over a minute after that.
Less than a minute later, Wilson scored his second goal of the game to put the Capitals up 3-2 and then Dylan Strome delivered the dagger two minutes after that on a power play.
The Capitals extended their franchise-record road winning streak to nine games.
“It was a big momentum shift for both teams — either way,” Suzuki said when asked about the four missed breakaways. “We need to capitalize on those.
“That’s got to be the most breakaways we’ve had in a game since I’ve been here,” Suzuki added. “Maybe we’ll have to work on them.”
Good idea.
“I don’t remember playing in a game with four breakaways,” said Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis, who had a 16-year Hall of Fame playing career. “Just the result stings a little bit, but I like what I see from our group.”
Canadiens rookie defenceman Lane Hutson also doesn’t remember playing in a game before where his team missed four breakaways in a period.
“The goalie made some nice saves,” Hutson said. “Definitely would have been nice if we scored on all of them, but you know that’s not going to happen. But maybe one or two would have been nice.
“They’re a great hockey team,” Hutson added. “They’ve been playing well as of late. We have, too. They were going to make a push … they had to make a push. They were down two goals and they wanted to climb back in the game. We missed our chances, they scored on theirs. Sometimes that’s just how it goes.”
The Capitals are sitting in first place in the Metropolitan Division with a 19-6-2 record despite missing superstar Alex Ovechkin for the last nine games with a fractured leg. The Capitals have a 6-3-0 record without Ovechkin, who still leads the team with 15 goals.
The Canadiens remain in last place in the Atlantic Division with a 10-14-3 record.
Winning nine straight road games in the NHL is quite remarkable. The Capitals also played Friday night in Toronto, beating the Maple Leafs 3-1.
“I think they just keep it pretty simple,” Suzuki said about the Capitals. “They got a deep roster. They’re able to play all their lines and their goalie made some good saves tonight. They don’t shoot themselves in the foot.”
There were some bright spots for the Canadiens.
Suzuki and Hutson both extended their point streaks to six games by picking up assists. Hutson becomes the first Canadiens rookie defenceman to have a six-game point streak since Chris Chelios in 1984-85. The 20-year-old has 18 assists in 27 games while still looking for his first NHL goal. Suzuki leads the Canadiens in scoring with 10-18-28 totals.
With his 17th goal, Caufield is now on pace to finish the season with 52. Last season, when he had 28 goals, Caufield didn’t score his 17th until the 48th game.
On the downside, Kirby Dach has now gone 19 games without a goal, has only one goal this season and is a team-worst minus-21. Christian Dvorak has gone 11 games without a goal and has only two goals this season. Juraj Slafkovsky also has only two goals.
It’s hard to win games when two members of your second line — Dach and Slafkovsky — have three goals combined for the season. Patrik Laine, the third member of that line, failed to score Saturday night for the first time in three games since returning from a pre-season knee injury.
It’s also hard to win when you can’t score on breakaways.
The Canadiens will be back in action Monday when the Anaheim Ducks will be at the Bell Centre (7:30 p.m., Prime, RDS).