In Montreal, Jake Oettinger made 18 saves, and the visiting Dallas Stars downed the Canadiens, 3-2, on Saturday afternoon.
“Jake held us in early and then we kind of took over from there,” Dallas’ Matt Duchene said. “We could have had a few more. Big win for us.”
Dallas moved to 32-14-6.
After a scoreless opening stanza Nick Suzuki scored with 38 seconds gone in the middle frame for a 1-0 lead to the Habs.
Thomas Harley tied it for Dallas, 1-1, at 3:51 of the second.
Montreal dropped to 21-22-8.
Tyler Seguin hit for his double before the close of the middle frame.
He pushed the Stars into the lead, 2-1, 24 seconds after the Hayley goal.
He collected his double at 17:45 for the 3-1 score.
Duchene set up the goal with a pass to Seguin.
“He’s such a skilled offensive player,” Seguin said of Duchene. “And all the games we play together now, this year we kind of just learned from each other, you know, what soft areas to go to, and he put a couple of great ones on my tape tonight.”
Juraj Slafkovsky scored at 18:37 of the middle frame to get the Canadiens back to within one at 3-2.
“They’re a good team, they know how to score goals,” Slafkovsky said. “We had plenty of chances to come back, but it just didn’t happen.”
Sam Montembeault made 35 saves in the loss.
“We came out pretty good out of the gate,” Montembeault said. “The crowd was into it, too, in the first period. I think it was a really intense period on both sides and we went back after the first 0-0. Maybe they played better in the second, it’s a veteran team, they work hard and they play good.
“But I think we stayed focused and we came back in the third and played some good hockey. Even though we got that four-minute penalty (a double-minor for high-sticking called against Montreal’s Jake Evans at 13:50 of the third period), I think the guys kept working and we got two or three scoring chances on that PK that could have went our way. But overall, I think I’m happy with the effort of the guys tonight.”
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