Mentioned this at the tail end of my postgame item after Monday’s 5-4 loss to Toronto. But that blown 4-1 third-period lead overshadowed the performance of center Mathieu Perreault. Bruce Boudreau was succinct on Monday morning when asked what the 22-year-old center – recalled from AHL Hershey just yesterday – needed to show him to finally stick in the NHL.
Consistency, energy and professionalism were the buzzwords. Made a mistake in my post Monday, though. This is actually Perreault’s fourth recall stint with Washington in 13 months – and the longest so far has been 18 games, not 13 as I wrote. Sorry about that.
It was just one night and Perreault has put together short bursts of brilliance before. But his two-goal night – the first of his career – was a nice start. Perreault was given the chance to play on the second line, centering Brooks Laich and Alex Semin as Washington continues to search for an answer at that spot. We’ll see if that continues on Thursday against the Florida Panthers.
The good folks at Japer’s Rink made the point in a tweet that in his first games after a recall Perreault has shown flashes like this before. He has three goals and four assists in his initial appearances. That’s seven points in four games. Considering he has just six points in his other 21 NHL appearances you can forgive the Caps if they don’t conclude their second-line center issue – it’s not really a problem at this point – isn’t quite solved after Monday’s effort
“[Perreault] brought great energy like we thought and he made plays like we thought,” Boudreau said after the game. “If some of the other forwards played with as much energy as him we wouldn’t have been in the situation we were in.”
Perreault showed great patience on his second goal, waiting with the puck to the left of Toronto goalie Jonas Gustavsson until he had an opening. He played 1 minute, 48 seconds in overtime and was tabbed for a shootout attempt by Boudreau. Perreault made a nice move on Gustavsson, but the goalie made a remarkable stick save to knock the puck out of the air.
Perreault also almost assisted on what would have been the game-winning goal – though no one knew that at the time – when he slipped a pass to Semin, who rang a shot off the post at 11:24 of the third period with Washington up 4-2. In all, Perreault played 18 shifts and saw 13:12 of ice time. He took three shots on goal and missed the net twice. He did lose seven of 11 faceoffs.
“Every time I get called up it seems the first game I’m flying,” Perreault said. “Now it’s just a matter of doing it every night.”
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