Stars Lose To Canadiens
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MONTREAL — Another night, another Montreal Canadiens win largely due to the efforts of goaltender Carey Price.
Coming off his fourth NHL All-Star game appearance, Price made 40 saves to help lift the Canadiens to a 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
“It’s a cliche, but I just take it one shot at a time,” said Price of his second game with at least 40 saves. “I just worry about the next one that’s coming at me and try to keep it simple.
Montreal is averaging 30.7 shots against this season, ranking 23rd in the NHL. Price has stopped more than 30 shots 13 times and has nine of his 25 wins in those games.
“He’s definitely one of the best goalies in the league,” Stars center Tyler Seguin said of Price. “He had a great game tonight, some very timely saves and he definitely stole the show tonight.”
Defenseman Alexei Emelin, left winger Alex Galchenyuk and right winger Brendan Gallagher scored for the Canadiens (30-13-3), extending their winning streak to three games.
Left winger Jamie Benn and right winger Patrick Eaves provided the offense for Dallas (21-19-7), which dropped its second straight.
A weird bounce put the Canadiens on the board first at 6:07 of the
first period. Left winger Brandon Prust took a hit along the boards before passing the puck up to Emelin at the point. The Habs defenseman fired a shot from the blue line that hit center Cody Eakin and trickled past a surprised Kari Lehtonen.
“Their guy was rimming the puck and I was going to my post to get ready for the puck to be in the corner,” said Lehtonen, who stopped 23 shots. “It hit something and came to the front. That was one of those goals that I need to be sharper and not assume that what I think is going to happen with the puck.”
Galchenyuk made it 2-0 at 9:53 when he danced around defenseman Jordie Benn and caught a frozen Lehtonen with a backhand up high.
The Stars got one back with three seconds left in the period after an intentional offside by Montreal put the face-off back in the Canadiens’ zone. With Lehtonen pulled, center Jason Spezza won the draw and got the puck back to Benn to cut the deficit in half.
Gallagher’s persistence on the power play put Montreal ahead 3-1 early in the second period. Defenseman P.K. Subban’s shot from the top of the left circle hit the end boards and bounced out to Lehtonen’s right. Gallagher picked up the loose puck and got several whacks at it before finally pushing it into the net at 4:37.
Shortly after Prust was whistled for interference, Emelin boarded Spezza, earning him a five-minute major and a game misconduct and giving Dallas 1:40 worth of a two-man advantage. While the Stars failed to convert on the five-on-three, Eaves finally broke through at 10:05, with less than 20 seconds remaining on the power play.
Seguin picked up a loose puck inside the blue line and carried it over to the left of the net before dishing off to an uncovered Eaves on the other side.
“I thought we did a pretty good job (on the penalty kill),” Canadiens center Tomas Plekanec said. “Obviously Pricey was a big part of it but I thought we stepped up there and stayed together on those kills.”
