Carey Price's late-game actions summed up the emotions of his teammates and the frustrated loyal following of the Montreal Canadiens.

When Washington Capitals fourth-liner Jason Chimera knocked in a third-period goal in his team's 6-3 victory on Wednesday, the Canadiens goalie fired the puck at the Capitals celebratory gathering. The puck narrowly missed the scrum, but it was close enough to earn him an unsportsmanlike penalty.

Almost eight minutes later, when Washington's Nicklas Backstrom added an empty-net goal in the dying seconds, Price came off the bench and swung his stick in the direction of the Capitals player to earn another two minutes.

"It's frustration, that's part of hockey. Let 'em know you're there," Price said, borrowing a line from Paul Newman's character, Reg Dunlop, in the popular hockey film, Slap Shot. The Canadiens are one frustrated bunch. They trail 3-1 in the opening-round series with Game 5 back in Washington on Friday, despite having carried the play for long stretches against the opportunistic and skilled Capitals.

In Game 4, the Capitals should have emerged from the second period with a two- or three-goal lead. But instead after being foiled four times by the catching mitt of Washington goalie Semyon Varlamov, the Canadiens yielded a short-handed goal to Mike Knuble with seven seconds left to enter the final period tied at 2-2.

"Those late goals are always momentum killers," Montreal forward Brian Gionta said.

The Canadiens rebounded to keep the Capitals at bay for half of the third period, but then a mistake here and missed checking assignment there allowed Alexander Ovechkin to score his second of the game off the rush and Chimera followed 52 seconds later to give Washington a two-goal lead. Price then took his costly first unsportsmanlike penalty with 7:59 left on the clock.

"When [Ovechkin] gets the puck close to the net he knows what to do," Price said. "That's why he scores 50 goals every year."

Washington coach Bruce Boudreau added that Ovechkin's quick-release shot is tough to stop: "That's his gift," Boudreau said.

Ovechkin now has four goals in three straight wins after being held without a shot on goal in the series opener.

"It's disappointing because at some point in these last three losses we had control of the game," Canadiens forward Mike Cammalleri said. "But we made mistakes and they took advantage."

'They had so many quality chances'

The game was tied 1-1 after the first period because Ovechkin beat Price with one of his hard, accurate snap shots. But Cammalleri came right back to score on the next shift. The Habs went up 2-1 on a Gionta power-play goal in the second period, but then Knuble countered with his huge short-handed goal.

After the Capitals went up 4-2 in the third, they sandwiched a pair of empty netters around a goal from Montreal's Dominic Moore. The Canadiens outshot their opponents 39-38 and put a whopping 21 shots in the second period at the remarkable Varlamov.

"He was great," Boudreau said. "They had so many quality chances in the second period that they could have gone in [the third period] up 4-1."

Besides sticking with Price in goal after he relieved Jaroslav Halek in Game 3, Canadiens coach Jacques Martin made two lineup alterations. Veteran defenceman Jaroslav Spacek was classified as sick, so in was young blue-liner Ryan O’Byrne and forward Sergei Kostitsyn replaced Mathieu Darche on the fourth line.

The Canadiens entered the game a perfect 14-for-14 in the series on the penalty kill, but they tempted fate early on against the league's top-ranked power-play unit in the regular season with a couple undisciplined penalties from Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitsyn for interference and high-sticking, respectively.

After surviving the Plekanec infraction, sure enough, Ovechkin buried his chance to end the Canadiens success on the penalty kill.