In Vancouver, the Canucks dropped a 4-1 loss on the visiting Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night. 
Nikita Zadorov hit for a double in the win.
Casey DeSmith made 16 saves in the win.
The Canucks improved to 44-18-8 off their sixth win in eight games.
“It’s definitely something to build on,” DeSmith said. “After a couple of tough losses here at home, it was good to string a couple of wins together. It’s getting down to playoff mode and I think the low-scoring games, we’re going to have to get used to being in them.”
The Canucks scored twice in the opening stanza, both by Zadorov, his first of the match came at 15:38 for a 1-0 lead.
“The first one was simple just to get the shot through,” Zadorov said. “[Sam Lafferty] had a good screen, it went in, it was good puck placement. And then I just jumped in the rush, [Mikheyev] made a good play, I just had to hit the net.”
Zadorov collected his double with 27 seconds left in the frame for the 2-0 lead.
Vancouver’s Conor Garland extended the advantage to 3-0 at 18:14 of the middle frame, scoring with a wrister from the left circle.
“Teddy just made a great play,” Garland said. “We want to be slashing across as wingers and he just had some poise and put it under the guy’s stick and hit me in stride, and I was fortunate enough the [defenseman] was on a late shift and I was aware I was going to have some time there, he just couldn’t get all the way over. So, I just got lucky. I hit the post and it went the right way.”
Juraj Slafkovsky was the lone striker for the Canadiens, his second period goal trimmed the deficit to 3-1 with 33 seconds left in the period.
“If we score on the power play, it’s a different game,” Slafkovsky said. “Today it didn’t go in, but I still feel our power play is pretty good and we’re just learning, and we’ll get it done next time.”
The Canadiens dropped to 25-32-12 off their fourth straight loss.
“We didn’t create enough offensively. They just kind of smothered us,” Montreal assistant coach Trevor Letowski said. “We didn’t get a lot of sustained offensive-zone shifts. We got a couple decent looks from the interior, but not nearly enough to score goals and win. We didn’t have a lot of answers offensively, but our guys played hard, we competed, but just couldn’t generate enough.”
In the third period, Nils Aman scored off a tip in at 11:44 for the 4-1 final.
“It’s a nice little tip, and good for him,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said of Aman. “Depth scoring 100 percent, [Lafferty] and Mikheyev getting a couple of assists, driving the net, converting on the 3-on-2, setting up those plays, it was nice.”
Sam Montembeault made 21 saves in the loss.
“We struggled to really generate a lot of [offensive]-zone time,” the Canadiens’ Mike Matheson said. “I think we’d spent way too much time in our [defensive] zone the first two periods and we were a little gassed by the time the third period came around to make a push. We have to go back and learn from it and figure out how we can break that pressure better earlier in the game.”
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