from Chuck Gormley of CSN Mid-Atlantic,

Through 22 games, the Caps (17-5-1) own the NHL’s fourth-best record and have gone 10-0-1 against the bottom 10 teams in the NHL standings and 5-1-0 against teams ranked between 11 and 19.

But against teams that occupy the top 10 spots in the league standings the Caps have gone 1-4-0, losing to the second-ranked Dallas Stars, the third-ranked New York Rangers and the seventh-ranked Pittsburgh Penguins, while splitting a pair of games with the 10th-ranked Detroit Red Wings.

“We want to see exactly where we’re at,” Caps defenseman Karl Alzner said. “We’ve played some of the tough teams and we haven’t beaten them. We didn’t beat the Rangers, we didn’t beat the Stars. We want to see where we’re at a little more and find out what this team is all about.

“We played pretty good in those games and that’s a good sign, but this is a bench mark team and everybody wants to beat the Canadiens. They’re making it tough on everybody in this league so it’s our turn to take a crack at them.”

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