Canadiens-Capitals: Price Gets The Start In D.C.

Carey Price has elected to ditch his red goalie pads, and revert to his more traditional white ones when he gets the start tonight in Washington when the Montreal Canadiens visit the Capitals.

Price sat out the last two starts after losing his previous three starts, and seven of his last nine.

As a likely morale-booster from coach Guy Carbonneau, Price played the last eight minutes of the Canadiens 4-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks in front of his home province crowd.

Price's new pads apparently shipped out from the manufacturer in London, ON late yesterday or early today, so he may use an older pair of white pads tonight.

He was 3-7 in the red ones.

Price goes up against a surging Capitals squad that is led by a red-hot Alexander Ovechkin, who leads his team in scoring with 74 points.

The Capitals are also the only team in the league with four players (Ovechkin, Niklas Backstrom, Mike Green and Alexander Semin) having 50 points or more so far this  season.

Washington leads the season series 2-1 over the Canadiens.

Montreal has just one win in the first four games of a six-game road trip that wraps up tomorrow in Pittsburgh.

Forward Steve Begin and defenceman Patrice Brisebois will be healthy scratches for the Canadiens, and winger Alex Kovalev was kept home for the remainder of the road trip yesterday by GM Bob Gainey.

Gregory Stewart, called up yesterday from Hamilton, is expected to play on a line with Maxim Lapierre and Tom Kostopoulos.

Tomas Plekanec returns from a two-game suspension following an incident last week in Edmonton.

Defenceman Mathieu Schneider makes his return debut with the Canadiens after being re-acquired in a trade Monday with the Atlanta Thrashers.