In Washington, DC, the visiting Montreal Canadiens scored three times in the opening stanza en route to a 5-2 thumping of the Capitals on Tuesday.
For the Caps, it was their fifth straight loss.
Sam Montembeault made 37 saves in the win.
The Canadiens moved to 1-21-8.
Suzuki hit for his double in the opening stanza to give the Habs a 2-0 lead.
His first came at 6:42 after a turnover in the neutral zone.
“It was definitely nice to get two goals early, get you settled into the game,” Suzuki said. “It was nice to play with [Caufield and Slafkovsky], and we’re just going to keep getting better. We’re talking a lot, which is great, trying to see where we’re all going to be on the ice. We’re building that chemistry back up.”
Suzuki potted his double less than 60 seconds later for the 2-0 advantage.
Michael Pezzetta pushed the lead to 3-0 at 13:13:07 of the first headed to the middle frame.
The Caps dropped to 22-19-7.
“Just change the momentum,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said of the switch. “The chances that we give up, it’s the same old story. We just make some massive mistakes there that, unfortunately for us, are just happening to different guys each night. It’s tough.”
The Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin added a marker, his 10th of the season, at at 6:03 of the middle frame to make it 3-1` to the Canadiens.
“I think it was kind of wake-up call for all of us,” Ovechkin said. “You know, we put the puck deep, we forecheck, we make smart decisions with the puck, and you can see we play in the zone most of the time and how I said, we just didn’t score.”
The Caps flooded the Canadiens zone but came with only the lone strike.
“Even though they were dominating in our zone we didn’t give them much in the slot,” Montembeault said. “We had a lot of guys that blocked shots.”
Slafkovsky then went to work on his double.
He pushed the lead to 4-1 at 11:19 of the third period, both teams were skating four players at the time.
“I felt very fortunate coming out of that second period still having a two-goal lead,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said, “and we managed the third pretty good.”
The Caps got that one back when Rasmus Sandin scored at 11:41 to make it 4-2 to the Habs.
Slafkovsky potted his double at at 14:01 for the 5-2 final count on the scoreboard.
“We had a lot of enthusiasm coming back after the (NHL All-Star) break, had two good days of practice and we got out to a great [3-0] lead,” Suzuki said. “Overall, the game was a bit sloppy. It’s to be expected after the break, but we managed to have a solid third period and extend our lead.”
Charlie Lindgren got the start, and yielded the three first period goals before getting the hook.
Darcy Kuemper made 15 saves in relief.
“We put ourselves in a bit of a hole here, so not a great time to lose five in a row,” the Caps’ Dylan Strome said. “We’ve got to string some wins together. We’ve done it before, so I think we can do it again.”
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