MONTREAL – The Washington Capitals overcame a challenging second period to secure a 5-2 comeback victory over the Montreal Canadiens in Game 4 of their Stanley Cup playoff series on April 27, 2025, at Bell Centre. Andrew Mangiapane’s go-ahead goal late in the third period gave the Capitals a 3-1 series lead, setting the stage for a potential series-clinching Game 5 at home on Wednesday.
Trailing 2-1 entering the third, the Capitals rallied with a momentum-shifting play. Mangiapane scored the decisive goal with 3:37 remaining, snapping a 2-2 tie. Trevor van Riemsdyk’s stretch pass from the goal line found Dylan Strome, who drew two defenders and dropped the puck for Mangiapane. “It was a great play by our [defenseman] there; I don’t know who it was,” Mangiapane said. “But a great quick-up caught them a little bit there. [Strome] with a great play and poise to drop it to me. I was thinking of passing it to [Ovechkin] obviously; he’s a pretty good goal scorer. But I wanted to shoot it on net and get a good shot, and it went in for me.”
“I thought it was a great play by van Riemsdyk, honestly,” Strome said. “We had a couple of times where we hit the middle up through the neutral zone, and just tried to get some speed. Mange came behind me, and I just tried to suck the guy in, and leave it there for him, and luckily he had some space.”
Brandon Duhaime, who scored twice, and Tom Wilson added empty-net goals to seal the 5-2 final. The Capitals’ resilience, honed during the regular season, was evident after a deflating second period where Montreal’s power play scored twice, while Washington’s went 0-for-3, including a 44-second 5-on-3. “We had a really good conversation,” coach Spencer Carbery said of the second intermission. “I just felt like at the end of the second period, our group was extremely deflated.”
The Capitals dominated 5-on-5 play, scoring three goals and allowing none. Logan Thompson’s key save on Nick Suzuki late in a scoreless first period set the tone. Montreal’s top line, which had 19 shots in Game 3, was limited to one 5-on-5 shot. “I think we can just put the past behind us,” Strome said. “There wasn’t too many times this year we lost two in a row.”
Washington took a 1-0 lead in the second when Strome scored on a loose puck. “I felt like I could just reach in and chipped at it,” Strome said. “Beau did a great job of taking two guys with him, and that’s how it went in.” Montreal tied it with Ivan Demidov’s power-play assist to Juraj Slafkovsky, then took a 2-1 lead on Cole Caufield’s power-play one-timer.
The third period turned on Wilson’s crushing hit on Alexandre Carrier, followed by Duhaime’s equalizer. “Tom just smokes a guy at center ice; I was kind of admiring that,” Duhaime said. “[Chychrun] gets it, and it’s a high flick; that’s a tough puck for any defenseman to handle.” Carbery noted, “Completely changed the momentum of the game.” Montreal’s Suzuki downplayed the hit’s impact: “I don’t think the hit really changed anything other than they went down the other way and just had a weird bounce off [Habs defenseman] Cole [Hutson] and went in.”
The Capitals’ tight-knit group, as Wilson emphasized, drove the comeback. “There’s an accountability when you’re that tight with each other, and you pull together,” Wilson said. Carbery added, “I know our group, and I know the character in our room.”
