Cole Caufield scored in the first minute of the first period and added another goal later in the frame, sparking the Montreal Canadiens to a 6-2 win over the Capitals on Saturday night at Bell Centre.

Washington entered the game with a modest three-game winning streak and six wins in its last seven games. Although they were able to briefly draw even with the Habs after Caufield’s opening salvo, Caufield and the Canadiens responded quickly and the Caps found themselves chasing the game for the remainder of the night.

“I didn’t mind some of the things that we did tonight,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “I thought we created enough offensively, we just made way too many catastrophic mistakes to be able to sustain that.”

In the first minute of the game, Caufield blocked a Jakob Chychrun point shot, tore off on the resulting breakaway and beat Charlie Lindgren for a 1-0 lead for the Canadiens, half a minute into the contest. Lindgren was making his first start since Jan. 29, following a short stint on injured reserve for a lower body injury he sustained in that game.

After the two teams traded unsuccessful power plays, the Caps pulled even in the back half of the first. With traffic in front, Declan Chisholm let a shot fly from the left point. The puck hit Anthony Beauvillier and bounded right to Alex Ovechkin, who had an easy tap-in for career goal No. 920 at 13:16 of the first.

But Montreal came right back to regain the lead 63 seconds later, scoring a goal similar to the one Ovechkin just scored.

From the left point, Canadiens defenseman Jayden Struble put a shot toward the net. It came to Nick Suzuki on the goal line, and the Habs captain pushed it cross crease for Caufield to tap it home from the opposite post at 14:19.

Less than two minutes later, Lindgren made a dazzling glove save to thwart Caufield’s hat trick bid.

Midway through the middle period, Montreal went on the power play again. Although the Caps were able to kill the penalty, the Habs added to their lead seconds after the kill was completed; Mike Matheson skated down  a gaping lane in the middle of the ice and beat Lindgren from the slot to make it a 3-1 game at 12:22.

Minutes later, Montreal netminder Jakub Dobes made a big stop on Aliaksei Protas from the right circle, and Suzuki grabbed the puck and took off in the opposite direction. From down low on the right side, he fed Kirby Dach in the slot, and Dach’s one-timer made it 4-1 for the Canadiens at 16:34 of the second.

In the waning seconds of the second, Dobes made one of his best stops of the night on Beauvillier, enabling the Canadiens to carry a three-goal lead into the third.

Those two quick goals in the back half of the second took some wind out of the Caps, who were playing their third game in four nights following the three-week Olympic break.

“We kill off a penalty, and then we end up going down 3-1right after the penalty,” says Caps center Nic Dowd. “Those are challenging to give up, right? You do a good job [on the kill], it’s a 2-1 game, and then all of a sudden, before you blink, it’s 4-1 and then the game gets away from you.

“And they defended well tonight; It’s tough to score goals in this League, and you go into the third period, and you’ve got to score three. You saw that [Friday] night when we played Vegas; they were able to score two, but it’s tough to get that third one. I think we have to manage situations a little bit better. It’s a 2-1 game on a back-to-back, we just kill a penalty off, or maybe we just have a power play – whatever it is – we have to manage that, especially in an arena like this, where the crowd gets into it on nothing plays. They can really sway momentum – and in a good way – for their home team.

“We just have to understand that if we don’t have our legs in certain situations, because of travel, it’s back-to-back or whatever, we really have to key into the details of the game and not let things get away from us quickly.

With 7:28 left in the third, Ovechkin netted his second of the game – and the fifth goal he has scored in this building this season – on a nice feed from Dylan Strome to pull the Caps within two goals of the Habs, who have coughed up some late leads this season.

But Montreal salted the game away with a pair of late empty-net goals from Suzuki and Jake Evans, respectively.

In winning six of their previous seven games, the Caps had been playing with a lead most of the time. But playing from behind virtually all night against a good team in a tough building is a tall task under any circumstances. And it was exactly that for the Caps on this night.

“They score on the first shift,” says Strome. “Obviously, Saturday night in Montreal is as good and as loud as it gets. They just got a fortunate bounce; puck was off Caulfield’s leg, and a perfect bounce for a breakaway. It’s just one of those things where we got down early and now they kind of fed off the momentum of the crowd.

“But I still think our game is in a good spot, and we’ve just got to keep stacking wins. Obviously, we’ve played more games than everyone so we’re going to need some help, but we’ve just got to keep stacking wins. It’s tough on the back-to-back in Montreal, but we’ll find a way to bounce back on Tuesday [vs. Utah at home] and then go from there.”