COLUMBUS, Ohio — Hours after trading disgruntled center Pierre-Luc Dubois, the Columbus Blue Jackets got three first-period goals and beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 Saturday.

Nick Foligno, Mikhail Grigorenko, Vladislav Gavrikov, Zach Werenski and Eric Robinson scored, and Elvis Merzlikins had 30 saves as the Blue Jackets played their most explosive game of the season. Fifteen Columbus players recorded points.

The Blue Jackets’ second victory in six games came shortly after Dubois, one of the team’s leading scorers, was sent to Winnipeg in exchange for Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic in a deal announced early Saturday.

Victor Hedman and Ondrej Palat scored for the Lightning, who lost for the first time in their first four games. Andrei Vasilevsky made 22 saves.

Hedman started it by beating Merzlikins with a backhander from the slot on a rush 4:10 into the game. The Blue Jackets tied it 17 seconds later when Foligno knocked in a rebound off Vasilevsky’s stick. Cam Atkinson did good work fighting off Hedman all the way through the zone to get to the net.

Later in the first, Grigorenko got his first goal as a Blue Jacket when he tapped in a puck that had trickled behind Vasilevsky.

Gavrikov’s snap shot from the slot with 59 seconds left in the first put Columbus up 3-1. The Lightning, though, capitalized quickly on a power play with Palat’s tap-in 14 seconds before the break to make it a one-goal game again.

After a scoreless second period, Werenski’s shot from the left circle went in for his first goal of the season 6:34 into the third. Robinson added an empty-netter with 1:48 left.

Dubois was Columbus’ top-line center before he was benched Thursday for lack of effort two days ago. After leading the team in scoring with 49 points last season, he had one goal and no assists in the first five games of 2021.

Both Dubois and Laine had been asking for a trade. Laine, a 22-year-old Finnish winger, has scored 36, 44, 30 and 28 goals in his four NHL seasons. Roslovic, a 23-year-old center who grew up in Columbus, has 26 goals and 41 assists in 180 career games.

CANADIENS 5, CANUCKS 2: Corey Perry scored in his first game with Montreal, and the Canadiens completed a season-opening trip with a 4-0-2 record.

Perry was promoted off the taxi squad to replace Joel Armia, who was concussed by a hit from Vancouver’s Tyler Myers as the Canadiens trounced the Canucks 7-3 on Thursday. Perry, after 14 seasons in Anaheim and one with Dallas, signed a one-year deal with Montreal before this season.

Montreal also got goals from Nick Suzuki, Brendan Gallagher, Jonathan Drouin and Joel Edmundson. Elias Pettersson and Nils Hoglander scored for Vancouver.

Carey Price made 23 saves to collect his 350th NHL win.

NOTES

STARS: Dallas captain Jamie Benn didn’t practice Saturday, a day after his right leg buckled awkwardly during a collision in his team’s delayed season opener.

Coach Rick Bowness provided no update after practice on Benn’s condition or his status for Sunday’s game, when the Stars play Nashville again. The coach only repeated what he said after the 7-0 win over the Predators on Friday night, that Benn has a lower-body injury and is day-to-day.

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