Defenseman Justin Holl fired a shot that put Washington ahead in the third period.
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Justin Holl is proving to be just what the Capitals needed. The veteran defenseman, recalled from Hershey earlier this week, scored his second goal in as many contests, this one a game-winner in the third period that helped Washington earn a 5-4 home win Wednesday over the Montreal Canadiens.
With 7½ minutes to play in a tied game, Holl took a shot on net from just inside the blue line that made its way through traffic and found the net. Alex Ovechkin, who helped screen Montreal goaltender Jakub Dobes on the play, got an assist after many in the crowd at Capital One Arena cheered wildly on the mistaken initial belief that he might have redirected the shot and thus scored his 931st career goal.
A few moments later, Alex Tuch sealed the win with his second goal of the night and team-leading fifth of the season. The Capitals had to sweat out the final two minutes, however, after teammate Dylan Strome was whistled for slashing, putting Montreal on the power play. The Canadiens made it a 6-on-4 situation by pulling their goaltender, and their captain Nick Suzuki quickly made it a 5-4 game with a wrister that beat Capitals goaltender Charlie Lindgren’s glove side.
A number of very tense seconds had to then tick off the clock before the Capitals could breathe a sigh of relief after ending a two-game losing streak.
The Capitals improved to 4-3 a day after losing on the road to the Carolina Hurricanes. With starting goalie Logan Thompson having played Tuesday night, the assignment in net on the second night of the back-to-back went to 32-year-old backup Lindgren, who broke into the NHL with the Canadiens in 2016.
Tuch’s first goal of the game swung momentum dramatically in Washington’s direction after Montreal (3-3-1) spent much of the opening five minutes of the second period buzzing around the Caps’ defensive zone. At that point, Washington appeared to finally suffer a breakdown when Justin Sourdif was whistled for tripping. With Montreal on a power play, however, a puck bounced off the skate of Canadiens forward Juraj Slafkovsky — and Tuch pounced. He skated back the other way on an odd-man break and powered a shot past Dobes. The shorthanded goal seemed to ignite Washington, which subsequently had the better of play for an extended stretch.
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That ended, though, when Holl was stripped of the puck in his own end, drawing the attention of a pair of teammates. No one stayed with Montreal forward Josh Anderson as he slipped to the front of the net and notched a fairly easy goal to tie the game 3-3.
Later in the second period, a somewhat chippy game got much more physical when Montreal’s Slafkovsky was knocked toward the ice on what appeared to be a clean hit by Washington forward Ivan Miroshnichenko. On his way down, Slafkovsky’s head made hard contact with Capitals forward Tom Wilson, who was skating past. As Slafkovsky spent several moments on the ice, a fracas broke out while officials called a five-minute penalty on Washington. After a review, though, that penalty was rescinded and two-minute minors were called on three players, which had the effect of giving the Capitals a power play.
After Montreal got on the board first with an Anderson goal, Jordan Kyrou evened the score 1-1 in the first period by making a nifty lateral move to get past a defenseman before rifling a shot past Dobes’s stick side. Caps defenseman Cole Hutson, playing for the first time in the NHL against his brother, Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson, was awarded an assist on the play.
Several minutes later, just after the brothers shared some time on the ice, Lane Hutson got his name on the score sheet by skating with the puck past Washington’s blue line and, just before he met traffic between the circles, layering a shot by Lindgren.
Lane Hutson then incurred a penalty, with just over two minutes to play in the opening frame, after he got too rough trying to prevent Capitals forward Ryan Leonard from chasing down a puck in the offensive zone. Miroshnichenko, seeing his first action of the season, made Montreal pay by scoring a goal off what appeared to be a pass intended for Tuch, who was positioned near the net. Instead, the puck bounced off the stick of the Canadiens’ Anderson and got past Dobes with 25 seconds remaining before intermission.
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