The Montreal Canadiens (26-14-6) are set to face the Washington Capitals (23-17-6), with the puck drop scheduled for 7:00 pm ET.
The Habs are fresh off an exciting win versus the Vancouver Canucks in which several of their young starts took to the forefront, including Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov, who both managed to register a three-point game.
Of course, the biggest story of the night was the two-goal effort by defenceman Alex Carrier, the first of his career. Not only did he tie the game for the Canadiens at a crucial time in the second period, he went on to hand his team a precious one-goal lead shortly thereafter.
Alex Carrier scores AGAIN, 20 seconds later.
— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) January 13, 2026
This time it was Juraj Slafkovsky with the great pass.#GoHabsGo up 3-2. pic.twitter.com/GSbdDU09s8
While the Canucks represented one of the struggling organizations in the NHL, the Capitals should offer a much stronger effort, and have a history of beating the Canadiens, as evidenced by their first matchup of the season, an 8-4 win for Washington.
This time around, the Capitals will have to do without forward Tom Wilson, who is slated to miss Tuesday night’s game with a lower-body injury.
Alex Ovechkin will be in the lineup, and the Habs would do well to cover him as closely as possible, given that the 40-year-old star loves playing versus Montreal.
In 61 career games versus the Habs, Ovechkin has scored an impressive 42 goals and 32 assists.
Lineup Changes, Starting Goalie
Canadiens head coach Martin St-Louis will turn to veteran netminder Samuel Montembeault versus the Capitals, which should be considered a continuation of the goaltender carousel that has taken hold in Montreal, especially since Jakub Dobes was tapped to be the starter on Monday night versus the Canucks.
In that vein, we should expect rookie Jacob Fowler to start Thursday’s game versus the Buffalo Sabres.
As for any other potential changes, we will have to wait for puck drop to determine if forward Josh Anderson will return to the lineup. He skated on Tuesday morning, but is considered a game-time decision.
Montreal Canadiens Projected Lineup
Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Alex Texier
Juraj Slafkovsky – Oliver Kapanen – Ivan Demidov
Zachary Bolduc -Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher
Samuel Blais – Joe Veleno – Owen Beck
Mike Matheson – Noah Dobson
Lane Hutson – Alex Carrier
Kaiden Guhle – Arber Xhekaj
Jacob Fowler
Washington Capitals Projected Lineup
Aliaksei Protas – Dylan Strome – Alex Ovechkin
Connor McMichael – Justin Sourdif – Ryan Leonard
Brandon Duhaime – Nic Dowd – Anthony Beauvillier
Ethen Frank – Hendrix Lapierre – Brett Leason
Martin Fehervary – John Carlson
Jakob Chychrun – Matt Roy
Rasmus Sandin – Declan Chisholm
Logan Thompson
How To Watch The Habs Vs. The Capitals
The Montreal Canadiens versus the Washington Capitals, Tuesday, January 13, 2026, will be aired on TSN2 and RDS. An instant recap complete with highlights will be available on Sportsnaut as soon as the final whistle blows.
