In Montreal, Cole Caufield potted a pair of power play goals, one midway through the second period, and the second in the seventh minute of the third period to give the Canadiens a 4-2 lead on Thursday night, en route to a 4-3 win over the Nashville Predators.
“Obviously, we don’t want to have to have bounce-back games, but I loved our energy off the start,” Caufield said. “We stuck with it through some penalties, and I think our special teams was the difference tonight.”
Sam Montembeault made 39 saves in the Habs win.
The Canadiens improved to 17-22-3.
The Preds’ Nino Niederreiter and Montreal’s Jake Evans traded goals in the first period for a 1-1 tie.
Kirby Dach put the Canadiens ahead, 2-1.
“This was a good stepping-stone for our group to kind of learn and play a hard 60-minute game like this against a team that’s big and strong,” Dach said.
The Preds dropped tp 1916-6.
“I thought we needed to play better in front of him, but a good first start for him,” Nashville coach John Hynes said. “He made some big saves, was tested a lot, so I give him a lot of credit.”
Filip Forsberg tied the game, 2-2, with 12 seconds of fresh ice used in the middle frame.
Nashville’s Juuso Parssinen scored with 89 seconds left for the 4-3 final.
Yaroslav Askarov made 31 saves in the loss, it was NHL debut for the Predators.
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