WASHINGTON — When Montreal Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis was asked Tuesday about the performance of some of his young players in their Stanley Cup Playoffs debut, he talked baseball.

“You go to the Major Leagues and the first time you see a 98 mile-an-hour fastball, you’re probably not going to touch it, but eventually you start following it,” St. Louis said. “And the goal for us is to hit singles and doubles. Eventually, I thought we did that in the third (period).”

The Canadiens did lose 3-2 in overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference First Round to the Washington Capitals, but after they rallied from two goals down in the third to send it to overtime, they expect the positives to carry into Game 2 of the best-of-7 series on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, MNMT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

“It was a lot of guys’ first taste of playoff hockey here yesterday, and we’re a young team, but I think our speed and the way we can play kind of took over there in the third,” forward Alex Newhook said. “I think we settled in fine after their first push, and I think we’ll settle in fine in the series and bring a better effort in Game 2.”

The Canadiens, who last played in the postseason in 2021, have seven players in the playoffs for the first time: defensemen Lane Hutson, Kaiden Guhle, Jayden Struble, forwards Juraj Slafkovsky, Emil Heineman, Ivan Demidov and goalie Sam Montembeault. St. Louis said Montreal struggled to execute from the top of the face-off circle to the far blue line early in the game but eventually settled in as the game wore on.