MONTREAL – Brian Gionta and David Desharnais scored power-play goals and Carey Price made 26 saves as the Montreal Canadiens extended their winning streak to three with a 4-2 win over the Boston Bruins on Saturday night.

Lars Eller and Tomas Plekanec also scored for Montreal, which won 2-1 in Boston on Thursday night. The Canadiens improved to 4-5-2 after winning only one of their first eight games.

Montreal’s winning streak began after assistant coach Perry Pearn was fired Wednesday prior to the team’s 5-1 win over Philadelphia.

Tyler Seguin scored with 54.4 seconds remaining to draw the Bruins within one. Milan Lucic also scored for the reigning Stanley Cup champions, who lost their third in a row. Tuukka Rask stopped 23 shots in his third start.

The Bruins were being outshot 9-3 when Brad Marchand hit the left post with a wrist shot from the top of the slot at 13:46.

Gionta made it 1-0 at 15:26 with his second goal on Montreal’s first power-play opportunity.

Advertisement

The Canadiens’ captain deflected Plekanec’s slap shot from just inside the blue line past Rask.

Eller made it 2-0 at 16:42 when he sent a wrist shot over Rask’s glove from the left faceoff circle for his first of the season.

Desharnais scored his second goal on another man advantage 12:24 into the second to increase the lead to 3-0. Desharnais scored off a scramble in front with 2 seconds left in the second of overlapping minors against Boston that gave Montreal a brief two-man advantage.

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.