Canadiens Visit Capital One Arena Looking to Expose a Shaky Capitals Start
Two teams sitting right around the .500 line meet Wednesday night at Capital One Arena, and neither can afford to treat this like a throwaway October game. Montreal brings a 3-2-1 record into Washington, where the Capitals sit at 3-3-0 and badly need to start converting home ice into home wins.
The story on Montreal's side begins and ends with Nick Suzuki. The Canadiens captain has been the engine of everything good about this team early in the season, posting 3 goals and 5 assists for 8 points — numbers that make him not just Montreal's best player right now, but one of the more productive forwards in the league through the first few weeks. When Suzuki is dictating the pace, Montreal is a genuinely difficult team to handle. Jakub Dobes is expected to start in net for the Canadiens, and how he handles a Washington power play or a sustained zone presence will go a long way toward determining whether Montreal picks up two points on the road.
Washington's offensive picture is more distributed, which cuts both ways. Boone Jenner leads the team with 3 goals, Dylan Strome has been the primary facilitator with 5 assists, and Ryan Leonard sits atop the team's points leaderboard at 6. That's three different names for three different categories — a sign of depth, but also a sign that no single player has seized control of this offense the way Suzuki has in Montreal. Charlie Lindgren is expected to start in goal for the Capitals, and at 3-3-0, Washington needs him to be sharp. A team that's already at .500 in mid-October doesn't have the cushion to absorb another home loss without the alarm bells getting louder.
Our model doesn't have a validated read on this one, so we're not going to manufacture conviction where there isn't any. What we can say is that this matchup has genuine intrigue: a red-hot Suzuki against a Washington team searching for consistency, two young netminders with something to prove, and a venue that should be energized for a Wednesday night tilt. Watch Strome's playmaking against Montreal's defensive structure — if Washington can get Jenner clean looks off Strome's setups, the Capitals have a real path to a win. If Suzuki keeps doing Suzuki things, Montreal walks out of D.C. with the extra point.