WASHINGTON - The Capitals had to grind for this one, and they knew it. Even with some rough patches in the mix, Washington did enough Wednesday to finish off a 5-4 win over the Canadiens and bank two much-needed points.
Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch drove the offense. Kyrou scored once and added an assist, while Tuch piled up two goals and a helper as the Capitals held on late in Washington.
Kyrou gave the Capitals a lift after Montreal opened the scoring. On a power play that was winding down, he charged up ice, stayed with a bouncing puck, cut toward the middle and beat Jakub Dobes to tie it 1-1.
He wasn’t done there. Kyrou later set up Ivan Miroshnichenko’s power-play goal, helping Washington pull even at 2-2 after Lane Hutson had put Montreal ahead 2-1. It was Kyrou’s first multi-point game with D.C.
Then Tuch took over in his own way. The 30-year-old created a shorthanded chance by stripping the puck on the penalty kill, turned it into a 2-on-1, and finished it himself for his fourth goal of the season. He later added his second goal of the night to help seal it.
Washington also got a boost from the reshuffled lines. Tuch clicked with Dylan Strome and Kyrou at 5-on-5 while Pierre-Luc Dubois remained out. Tom Wilson brought life to a line with Aliaksei Protas and Justin Sourdif, and Ilya Protas bounced back with two assists alongside Alex Ovechkin and Miroshnichenko.
On the blue line, Justin Holl continued to make the most of his call-up with Matt Roy still sidelined.
The Capitals did give Montreal chances. Nick Suzuki scored a late power-play goal, and Washington had a few defensive mistakes that made things tighter than it needed to be.
Still, the group managed to lock things down when it mattered most.
Charlie Lindgren came up with several important saves and finished with 25 stops on 29 shots. And while the win counts, the Capitals still have cleanup work ahead, including better defensive reads in front.
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Instead, the game kept tilting away from them in the kind of sequence that leaves a bench irritated for the rest of the night. Washington had one goal wiped out on a goaltender interference call, then lost a similar challenge on a Carolina score a few minutes later, and the penalties and momentum swings kept piling up from there. By the end, the 4-2 loss felt less like a runaway and more like one that slipped through their hands for a very specific reason. [Read more 🡒]
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Capitals Just Ran Into A Carolina Team Finding Another Gear
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Carolina also kept getting secondary scoring at the right moments, which has been a big part of why this stretch has looked so convincing. Mark Jankowski added to that momentum by extending his goal streak, a late touch that fit the tone of a night when the Hurricanes looked deeper and more dangerous than the team Washington saw earlier this season. [Read more 🡒]