November 9 against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center

Time: 7:00 p.m.

TV: MNMT

Radio: 106.7 Le Fan, Caps Radio 24/7

Washington Capitals (9-4-0)

St. Louis Blues (7-7-0)

Two teams looking to bounce back from a loss in their previous outing will face off Saturday night at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. For the Caps, Saturday’s game is the second half of a back-to-back series; Washington’s seven-game home winning streak was ended by the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night in Washington.

Friday’s game pitted the third-best 5-on-5 team in the league against the third-worst team in the NHL. Washington entered the game with a plus-13 goal differential at 5-on-5 while the Penguins were minus-16.

None of that mattered as the Pens took a 2-0 lead heading into the game’s first televised timeout. The Caps responded right away on Rasmus Sandin’s first goal of the season before halftime in the first, and they tied it even early in the second when Jakub Vrana made a sublime saucer backhand to Andrew Mangiapane, whose finish tied the match at 2. -2.

The Caps missed a number of excellent scoring chances the rest of the game, some that they couldn’t finish and others that were thwarted by rookie goaltender Joel Blomqvist. The game turned into a goalie duel for about 25 minutes of play, as both goalkeepers made big saves and the game remained deadlocked.

For the first time in five home games, the Caps were trailing by a goal in the third period, and it turned out to be the game-winner. Evgeni Malkin capitalized on the rebound of a Bryan Rust shot to give the Pens a 3-2 lead midway through the third, and Washington was unable to answer. A late empty-net goal gave Pittsburgh a two-goal victory in the first of four meetings this season between the two Metropolitan Division rivals.

Washington’s power play was 0 for 3 in Friday’s game, falling to a league-low 4 for 46 (8.7 percent) this season. The Caps’ excellence at 5-on-5 has been enough to beat the opposition most nights, but not Friday against Pittsburgh.

“I felt like we didn’t play too bad,” Caps defenseman John Carlson said. “We had the momentum when they scored there, and we had a lot of good chances throughout the game that maybe could have changed the trajectory of the game.

“It’s not that we played the perfect game; we probably gave away too many chances, but we also felt like we were on the attack. It felt like we had a lot of good chances , a lot of stuff like, ‘Oh man, how did that not fall?’ These things matter. These things count for momentum and they – obviously – count for the score.

What matters now for the Caps is to nip Friday night’s setback in the bud and respond with a game in St. Louis that gives them a chance to take two points home against a Blues team rested and also dissatisfied with her previous result. The Caps managed a victory after each of their first three losses this season; good teams don’t let losses fester into long skids.

Saturday’s game will pit the two worst power play units in the NHL against each other; St. Louis’ extra unit ranks 31st in the league at 11.8 percent while Washington sits in the cellar at 8.7 percent on the season.

“We’re just going to have to find a way to continue to work at it,” Caps coach Spencer Carbery said of Washington’s power play. “It’s evolved without (Evgeny Kuznetsov, Nicklas Backstrom and TJ Oshie) now, and so we’re going to have to find a mix of who these players are and the options that best suit these players and their skill sets, and we’re still working our way through this.

For the Blues, Saturday’s game is the fourth game of a five-game home series, the second longest of the season. St. Louis won the first two games of the home game, beating Toronto and Tampa Bay, respectively. But the Blues fell to Utah Thursday night in the middle of a home game, 4-2.

Following that loss – a game in which they were held to just 15 shots on goal, including just seven in the final 40 minutes of the game – the Blues shuffled their lines a bit ahead of Saturday’s game against Washington.

“Obviously (Thursday),” Blues coach Drew Bannister begins, “I think the shot total was indicative of our game as a whole, our lack of forechecking and our lack of (offensive) pressure that we had. When you look at the chances, I think in the first half we probably created seven chances and then in the second and third we didn’t create a lot of chances that we would like to see.

“(Thursday) night was definitely a game that overall wasn’t good for us. When you don’t forecheck and play the right way, you don’t get rewarded offensively.

St. Louis was a little disturbed at first; The Blues are missing a certain number of regulars. Top-six right-handed center Rob Thomas has a fractured ankle, and St. Louis is also missing a trio of consistent defenders: Nick Leddy, Philip Broberg and Torey Krug.